Underutilized corridors, last-mile connections or access to reliable transportation, affordable housing production, employment opportunity, and a ready workforce is a challenge for many communities. These issues are interdependent yet approached individually. Therefore, lacks a comprehensive solution that can help mitigate the systemic issue.

Philadelphia has the unfortunate distinction as the nation's largest poorest city, with a poverty rate of more than 26 percent. More than 84% of businesses in Philadelphia have fewer than 20 employees. Changing that narrative begins with growing our neighborhood businesses and commercial corridors by ensuring they have access to capital, as well as providing them with the means to be competitive in acquiring City contracts. What this says to a local entrepreneur or business owner is, "We, as a city entity, value you and want to help you and your communities thrive."

Maine is a rural state with a massive influx of visitors in the summer months. As our world becomes more and more digitized, the ability to work from home is a real possibility for many individuals. This includes those who visit Maine to enjoy our natural beauty, as found at Acadia National Park, the national monument at Katahdin, our many lakes, beaches, and ski resorts. Coworking spaces provide Mainers with the opportunity to avoid long commutes to office spaces, visitors with the ability to extend vacations for a few more days, and entrepreneurs with inexpensive space to generate their next venture.

In the wealthy Boston suburbs, housing prices and rent are rising sharply, affordable housing is difficult to find, traffic is a nightmare, and the city is overcrowded. But travel west and the picture is completely different. Housing prices are among the lowest in the state, cost of living is much lower, and there are great open spaces and incredible cultural assets. However, because Western Massachusetts has a graying population, the region’s population growth is slowly declining, and this decline has presented a self-reinforcing cycle of challenges - not enough jobs causes many of the area’s young people to leave, which causes a decline in school enrollments, leading to less state aid and fewer workers to support the region’s businesses.

We know that the starting line isn’t the same for everyone. The bottom line is that place matters as to how well we live, and how well our children live. Poverty and place are inextricably connected – children who grow up in poverty have different outcomes than those who grow up in healthy neighborhoods. My community is a community of neighborhoods. Most of us are defined by the neighborhood we live in, and the sad truth is that too many of our neighborhoods are not healthy. Nearly half of Leon County families with children under the age of 5 are living in poverty, and these numbers are even higher in neighborhoods like South City, where 68.5 % of families live in poverty.

Pregnant employees, employees seeking to become pregnant, and those recovering from childbirth are forced to choose between their reproductive decisions and their livelihoods. Workers are subjected to conditions that can harm their opportunity for a healthy pregnancy or have to work a schedule that does not allow them to attend necessary appointments. Their employers are not providing the flexibility or workplace modifications needed to ensure that these workers can sustain a healthy pregnancy and remain productive at work. Additionally, partners of pregnant employees are often unable to provide the physical and emotional support to their partner due to lack of scheduling flexibility at their own jobs.

Today, Louisville has about 79 percent of the tech jobs it should have for a city of its size, and the economy of the future will require significantly more jobs in software development, artificial intelligence, and data analytics. LouTechWorks seeks to meet those demands by quintupling the city’s projected tech job growth over the next few years. The Brookings Institution recently identified 28 percent of Louisville’s jobs are at high risk of automation, and LouTechWorks plans to bring government, public and higher education, philanthropy, nonprofit and corporate leadership together to mitigate the automation risk. The focus on technology jobs is key, as they typically pay well, are fast growing, and are less susceptible to automation.

Atlanta’s residents have been outspoken in their criticism of a perceived lack of transparency and inclusion from its government.

Veterans have a higher unemployment rate than the broader labor market. The idea that veterans come home and have trouble finding long-term employment is unacceptable.