The National League of Cities (NLC) is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Governing spoke with its CEO, Clarence Anthony, about the group’s history and continuing mission.
What was the motivation to start NLC?
It all started in 1924, in Lawrence, Kan., when 10 municipal leagues got together and said they wanted to make sure they had a voice in Washington, D.C. They also talked about good government. What did that look like? And then the other goal was to create a space where leaders can network and share best practices.
In honor of the anniversary, NLC has traveled to dozens of cities. What have you learned?
We wanted to see our work in action. We decided we should meet our members in their communities where they are, so that we can see the projects they’re working on, the diversity of their economies, the approaches that they use on housing and transportation — and most of all, what impact they’ve had on their community through these projects.
It has been fascinating for us to be in this RV and drive up and see the response from our members. One example is Orlando. While we were there, they actually had a ribbon cutting on a housing project because of the dollars they got through work with NLC. So we’re seeing it in action. And I’m so proud of it.
What else have you learned?
The information that we provide has been very helpful to our members — our toolkits, our solutions, our advocacy in helping get federal dollars in their hands. They’ve been showing us how they are using those dollars to address infrastructure, small business, housing, all kinds of creative projects.
With a lot of the federal dollars, they’re great, but they’re very complex and sometimes difficult to get. We just set up a meeting with the Department of the Treasury to talk about how they can work with smaller cities to make it less complicated. We’ve come back and used that information to make it more streamlined.
Where will NLC be in, say, 10 years?
We’ve stayed true to our founding principles. The manner in which we deliver those services — the research has changed and clearly technology, with virtual meetings and the ways in which we pull down research and the visualization of that information, has changed. But the basic principles of federal advocacy representation, best practices and making sure that good government continues to be lifted up have not changed.
In the next decade, we’ll continue to think about the way in which we connect and deliver services to our members. We’re going to continue to strengthen our home rule principles — that if you want something done, you give it to a local leader, and they’ll get it done.
Cities continue to be the most trusted and reliable level of government to bring about change and opportunity in America.
