 And welcome to City View, where we bring you a close-up view of the City of Columbia. I'm your host, Alicia Utsi. In our top story, we bring you footage from the U.S. Conference of Mayors' fall leadership meeting. This meeting was held right here in Columbia, South Carolina, where Mayor Steve Benjamin serves currently as the national president. Whether we're Democrats or Republicans, or choose not to have any labels whatsoever, we work together on behalf of the men and women of America. 85% of our citizens now live in cities and metropolitan economies. 89% of all jobs are located in our communities. 92.1% of America's GDP created in cities and metropolitan economies. As goes America City, so goes America, the greatest democratic nation in the history of the world. The U.S. Conference of Mayors' fall leadership meeting included a host of meeting sessions, a block party that was hosted by Mayor Steve Benjamin, and also Mayor Steve Benjamin hosted a move with the mayor special walk through downtown Columbia. And speaking of downtown, downtown was also the site for the annual parking day event, which featured parking spaces in downtown Columbia that were transformed for multiple purposes. We're out here celebrating parking day and just understanding the power of the public realm and using public space to create places where people gather. I can appreciate the value of art and just common space. The reality is that we'll do a lot of things over the course of our lifetimes. Some things will come and go, but the ways in which we influence the public realm will dictate how our citizens interact 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, and showing how creative we can be to make these places special is what we're doing here today at Parking Day. And now we take you from downtown Columbia to the Vista, which is the new home for the Columbia Visitor Center. This is a big day for a relatively small in terms of area and endeavor. It's representative of what so many of you have been working on for so long. Some of you new to the city, some of you have been here for decades, working to build Columbia and what we know it can be. To be able to make small strategic investments that recognize a historic value of places like Columbia's Vista, as Kirkman's Finley would call it, it's a peperate with new buildings and strategic public sector investments and watch private sector investment grow. The Vista was also the site for a very special press conference that was held to do the full launch for the Blue Bike Share Program here in Columbia. I'm pushing 50 guys, that was easy, okay? That was easy, e-bike rules, remember this, okay? You can have a great time and not break a sweat and get from point A to point B. Today is an exciting day for our city. Last week we had the pleasure of visiting Silicon Valley discussed with our peer city leaders and leaders in technology the future of transportation. How, if we appropriately address mobility issues, how we certainly can become the city of the 21st century. As society adapts to different means of getting around from bikes and scooters to autonomous vehicles, it's intriguing to see how cities that adapt are going to be the ones that prosper. Columbia is excited to have the full launch of the Blue Bike Share Program finally kicked off. If you would like details about where you can find a bike share station for Blue Bike, visit our website at columbiasc.net. And let's start moving. And speaking of moving, the comet recently announced a new bus route here in the city of Columbia. What an exciting time it is for the city of Columbia and the comet bus line for the restoration of Route 22. A very important part of the connection in community. Our city of course has been very vigilant about this whole possibility of connecting communities and of course this gives us a good opportunity to make this happen. Another great announcement here in the city of Columbia was made by the Columbia Empowerment Zone. The Columbia Empowerment Zone celebrated their 10th anniversary of bringing development into the city. We, meaning me and our city, are extremely fortunate to have such a committed group of citizens who often put service above self. The Columbia Empowerment Zone Inc. Board of Directors graciously and generously share their individual time, talents and treasures without hesitation. I am blessed by their desire to come together with me, Verdeen and each other to accomplish community and economic goals. These goals are established through strategic planning and aligned with Envision Columbia. And now we transition from the Columbia Empowerment Zone into Women's Empowerment. The Office of Business Opportunities was a sponsor for the recent Women's Empowerment Conference of South Carolina. And speaking of Women's Empowerment and the Office of Business Opportunities, a woman is a co-owner of the new Local Yoko on Main Street which is changing the face of downtown. How excited we are, a new business in our district. District 2 continues to grow, bloom and blossom. Amy, I want to say thank you to you for your insight. Come on, stand over here with me. Come on. She has done a magnificent job in restoring this building, Local Yoko. For the 12th year in a row, Mayor Steve Benjamin, Mayor Pro Tem Tamikasa Devine and city officials led the way for the annual Mayor's Walk Against Domestic Violence. The walk itself is very significant because we are the only walk in the community right now that specifically focuses domestic violence. But we also make sure that not only do we get people out here, but while we have them as captive audiences, we try to provide them information about resources in our community, ways that they can support our local shelter, ways that they can advocate to their elected officials and policymakers about domestic violence so that we can continue to make progress in our state. You know, our state has traditionally ranked very high in incidence of domestic violence. And specifically as it relates to homicides directly related to domestic violence. And so we want to make sure that, you know, we know the progress is not going to be made overnight. It's baby steps. But if it's going to be long lasting, is it going to change people's mindsets and the culture that we live in, we've got to be consistent. And so this walk is unique in that we try and arm people with all those things at the same time. As we close our show, we'll show you more footage of our walkers who joined us at Fenley Park for the annual Marist Walk Against Domestic Violence. The community truly came out in support of this Awareness Month. Thank you for watching CityView. And stay tuned to CityTV for the latest news and information. Also follow us on our social media platforms, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And visit our website on a 24-hour basis for all the local information and news that you need. Visit us at ColumbiaSC.net. And again, thank you for watching CityTV.