 Good afternoon and welcome. My name is Molly Martin and I'm the director of New America Indianapolis here with New America local I'd like to welcome you to the Urban America Forward equitable relief and recovery series the fourth and final installment in the series Led by Urban America Forward New America local and our partners at the National Urban League It's been a true pleasure to work with the whole team at the Urban League and especially Urban America Forward and putting together this important series of Vital Conversations looking at how we can look to COVID-19 relief and recovery through a great racial equity lens and ensure the survival and thriving of Urban America. I'm happy to announce my co-hostess and just sing her praises on this our final episode Elena Beverly the Vice President of Urban Affairs at the University of Chicago who's going to lead us through the conversation. It's been a true pleasure Elena and I hope you can frame and kick off the event for us now. Thank you Molly. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Welcome to Urban America Forward COVID-19 equitable relief and recovery series. A special thank you to our partners at New America local and especially my partner in crime Molly Martin of New America Indy and our organizational partner, the National Urban League. Also a special thank you to our generous supporters, the Kresge Foundation and the Annie Casey Foundation. They've been with us from the beginning. So the Urban America Forward program is a University of Chicago Office of Civic Engagement Initiative and we launched in 2015. The goal of program is and always has been to provide a platform that connects experts across a range of disciplines to share approaches to advancing equity in America's cities. Urban America Forward furthers one of the university's goals of convening the best and the brightest in the field who are committed to achieving equity in a more urban America. And we specifically designed this webinar to bring together a network of practitioner Experts who can share their efforts and their learnings in this critical moment to address COVID-19 We know that the COVID-19 crisis has had a devastating impact on our communities. The pandemic has exacerbated existing racial disparities and taken a disproportionate toll on African Latino communities in America's cities, both the physical and the economic well being. Practitioners across the country have mobilized to provide swift relief efforts, frankly navigating dual pandemics of systemic racial injustice and the impacts of the pandemic, all with an eye toward fashioning a more inclusive recovery. So our prior webinars focused on equitable relief efforts and ensuring that COVID does not further expand the racial wealth gap. Public and private partnerships providing essential supports and of course efforts to mitigate the mortgage and rental housing crisis. But today we are focusing our collective power on a discussion of equitable recovery with 12.6 million people unemployed and 41% of black owned businesses shuttered 32% of Latinx businesses shuttered and a looming foreclosure crisis combined with public health devastation on every front. How will cities With dramatically affected revenue streams ensure that no community is left behind and left out of recovery. Indeed, how do we re envision formal and informal policies to ensure that most that the community is most deeply impacted By the pandemic receive full some investment from the social safety net to education from transportation to public safety and economic development. How do we ensure that the communities that we care about receive all the investments worthy of all vibrant communities. So let's outline the program. Today we're going to begin with our distinguished speaker Michael Pagano to provide context and table setting for the discussion. Followed by a panel of experts practitioner experts who will delve more deeply into what the future of America's cities will look like post COVID Will then have questions and reflections from our future responded. And finally, we will have Q&A with the audience. So go ahead and submit your questions into the chat. Know that our Our A team from New America local is gathering those questions for us to share at the end of the program. To kick off our program today. I'm really delighted to welcome my friend Michael Pagano Dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois of Chicago. He is project director of the UIC Urban Forum an annual conference that is designed to address contemporary urban challenges. In addition, he has published 12 books and over 100 publications in urban finance capital budgeting federalism infrastructure urban development and fiscal policy and since 1991 he's written the annual city fiscal conditions report for the National League of cities without further ado Michael Pagano. Thank you very much Elena. I would have the first slide. As noted, I have been with the Annual report of the National League of Cities since 1991 and the what I'm going to be presenting here much of the data comes from that. It's a study of the it's a snapshot of the fiscal condition of the general fund only the general fund of municipalities. Municipalities and because it's done as on a survey basis. We don't have the 12 excuse me the 19,000 municipalities as part of it, but we have a very large sample that represents considerable portion of all the municipalities that I think the first slide next slide please demonstrates what What I think is important for all of us to understand and that is that the the the financial foundation of municipalities differs there. In other words, no two cities are exactly alike and how much they rely on a particular revenue source. Most cities, almost all cities. Have access to the property tax, which we're all familiar with, but a little more than half of America's municipalities have also have access to the sales tax. And around 11% have access to a wage or an income tax and it's the combination of those three broad general taxes and there are a lot more that go into the general fund. But it's the combination of those these those three that varies from year and year to year, depending on the underlying condition of the economy. And as you can see from this graphic. The purple line is the sales tax. And we know that with the sales tax and the income tax as soon as someone loses. Is it her job or the economy starts to go into freefall people's incomes dry up and also we stop consuming that as our sales tax receipts go down. Property taxes on the other hand lag a little bit. So even though it may be the case that your you don't think your Your property today is as worth as much as it was prior to the pandemic. If that won't be reflected on your property tax bill for another year or two, depending on where you live. And so the property tax Cities, those that rely only on the property tax are not getting damaged by the by COVID-19 as immediately as the others. Next graphic. With the Brookings institution we pulled together a way of understanding how the financial impact on municipalities. Could could roll themselves out over a period of time by marking on one side, the the Y access the The employment structure of a municipality, those that are more and these are not all the cities that were part of this. I try to just Highlight those who were part of this conversation in particular, but depending on whether they were in these very volatile industries that that Brookings identified as being those areas that will probably close down first, such as Lodging entertainment tourism, those sorts of industries as well as transportation. Those cities that are highly reliant on that kind of employment structure. Those people were affected immediately first and on the X axis, depending on how reliant the city was on the sales and income tax, which are, as I said, the very vault very Elastic taxes as soon as there's a change in the economy of people are laid off, they stop buying things and therefore the that revenue source dries up immediate immediately for the cities. So what what this demonstrates, I think very clearly is that there are some municipalities on the left side whose Fiscal fortunes are more quite closely tied to the property tax and therefore have a bit of a buffer before they have to start making dramatic changes in their In their revenue profiler and their spending patterns and the ones on the right side are those who were who got hit pretty quickly and pretty hard because of the unemployment or the employment situation. The the other thing to note is that this this was sort of the projections that we were making for the first few months after March or April, let's say By now, most municipalities have done a couple of things. We're now six, seven months into the pandemic. They have, they have reduced their reserves or their ending balances or the budget stabilization funds or the rainy day funds, whatever might be called Which were at an all time high at the start of the recession. And so they they are they are dipping into those as a way of buffering the The pandemics impact on their finances and they're also cutting back on filling vacant filling vacant slots in there in the in the city, as well as cutting back on some capital projects as well. I think we're going to be seen in the next couple of weeks. The the real Decisions are going to have to come through from the cities between what happens in Washington and now because we are we are now six to seven months into the recession. Finally, the last slide I have just to contemplate a bit about. So, where do we go from here. The topic of the conversation today is to look at what happens when recessions hit the finances of municipalities and how long it takes them to recover. So there are three long points here connected to the 1990 recession, the 2000 2001.com recession and of course the great recession. What we plotted here is how many years it takes for the general fund and that's the most discretionary Fund that cities have access to how long it takes for that discretionary fund and constant dollar terms to come back to what it was at the start of the recession. And you can see the 1990 and the 2001 recessions that took five, six years to come back to where it was, but the great recession on average across the country general funds returned to their pre great recession level just last year in 2019 took nearly 12 years for great the general fund to rebound to what it was in 2007. If you look at the yellow dash line, the yellow dash line indicates how severe and quickly the the general funds can be affected across the country. And so the question or at least the purpose of this I think is to demonstrate that it's not going to be an easy rebound and it's not one that's going to happen. As some economists call it a V shaped rebound, it's going to be one that will take many years to come back out of as cities are contemplating how to Reprioritize what they are spending funds on or to do whatever it is that they want they need to be aware and we as as cities citizens of cities need to understand that the rebound is not going to be quick. It's not going to be immediate. We're in for the hardest part of the the COVID recession over the course of the next to the next year or two, a lot of which will be dependent upon whether there is any sort of state local government relief from from Washington. And with that presentation, I hope that you the point was of this is to say that cities are like children and they're they're both unique and they have their own strengths and weaknesses and problems in their capacity to Be resilient and rebound from what what is hit. The other is that it's not going to be a rebound that's going to happen overnight. It will take many years to come back to where cities were in February of this year of 2020. Thank you very much. Michael, thank you for your remarks. That was so enlightening. And I do I particularly appreciate the idea that cities have their unique strengths, their unique vulnerabilities in this moment that they have their unique approaches to their own resilience. And that this will be a long haul effort. I am. I'm now going to turn to our panelists of expert practitioners to dive a bit more into the impact of COVID-19 on their cities. And I'm going to because we have such great content, I'm going to limit my introductions to just name and title, and we'll get directly to the conversations and momentarily. So I'm honored to welcome. Annika Goss Foster, who is the executive director of Detroit Future City, Ryan Albright, senior planner project manager at Civics in New Orleans, Michael B Kelly, the executive director of Baltimore Metropolitan Council, Doug Hooker, the executive director of the Atlanta Regional Commission, Mary Sue Barrett, my dear friend, president of the Metropolitan Planning Council in Chicago, and Tawano Black, founder and CEO of the Center for Economic Inclusion in Minneapolis. Ladies and gentlemen, we are thrilled to have you join this panel today and thank you so much for your time and expertise. So first we're going to turn to Annika, Annika Goss Foster, executive director of Detroit Future City. Annika, how does Detroit anticipate that COVID-19 will affect city revenue and what is your primary concern for more aspiring communities, the communities that you are working for and toward and envisioning for at Detroit Future City? So I think one of the things that we're really concerned about in Detroit and Detroit Future City is a private not-for-profit that focuses on the economic development and land use future for Detroit. So we are not a part of city government. So I want to clarify that. However, because Detroit is a city that has just been out of bankruptcy receivership in the last five years, this has become everyone's problem, public and private, and how we recover from and how do we prepare ourselves for a future post-COVID. And the response right away has been a public-private partnership to address business and retail in Detroit, to prepare them to apply for the PPP, prepare them for other kinds of PPE to be able to make sure that their businesses are able to stay open and to organize financial resources. The city has also really tried hard to prepare to prevent foreclosure. However, I think we're also very concerned that we don't know what the future might look like. One of the things that we're also seeing in Detroit is that, unlike in 2008, we're not really seeing a housing dip in the cost of housing. Housing values continue to increase, and people are moving into Detroit, which can be a very, I mean, on the one hand it's good that we're getting new people into the city. On the other hand, I think what's concerning is the number of people that are losing their jobs and losing their businesses, and it makes people very, very vulnerable if the cost of living remains so high. I also think that as we're organizing resources, both from a financial perspective, from the financial institutions on the private side, as well as public philanthropy, and city government resources, we also have to look at the disparity, which is something that's really important to us, between African-American and Latino-owned businesses that are in Detroit and white businesses that are in Detroit, and who is actually poised to receive some of these large-scale resources. And what we've known is that the economic barriers actually limit a lot of these businesses from thriving in the future, and so we want to make sure that we're preventing some of that from happening. Thank you. That's very important commentary, particularly in ensuring that it isn't uneven in the distribution of resources for those businesses. I'm going to turn to Ryan Albright, so I'm honored and pleased to introduce my friend who's the senior planner and project manager for Civics. Ryan New Orleans has such a unique arts and culture economic ecosystem. And it's also very relied on tourism and hospitality. It is also super resilient and has seen so many climate devastation moments and had to come back. So with the confluence of race, climate, economic deprivation in this moment, what are you thinking in terms of the parish and the city's revenue and approaches to ensuring that our communities receive the appropriate investment as part of equitable recovery? Yeah, thanks, Alina. I think, you know, it's a perfect storm. That confluence is in and of itself a perfect storm. So in New Orleans, as in many cities, the nonprofit and philanthropic organizations have stepped up to do what they can. The restaurants continue to serve thousands of to-go meals to their employees and their families, community-driven efforts like mutual aid have helped to address needs ranging from housing to just getting people gas money. But to speak specifically around the cultural economy in New Orleans, there have been grants and other supportive services that have been given to musicians and culture bearers and others working in the gig economy to try to help preserve that part of the city. It's unique, what makes it a cradle of American culture, but we know that there's a great deal more than needs to be done given the level at which culture drives the economy in New Orleans. We're also just seeing mostly largely grassroots organizations meeting the needs of the community, you know, from churches to even new nonprofits popping up just to provide food to people who are out of work. So as the pandemic continues, the need for assistance grows. It is critically important to develop policy solutions to address basic needs of all residents. Given the potential scale of the need, there's no way possible for the nonprofit sector to feed and house everyone who's going to need it. But to be fair, while these efforts have helped individuals and people on the neighborhood scale, there are even larger issues looming that impact the future of the city and its residents. As Michael noted in his presentation, 20 plus percent of the residents of the New Orleans Metro are employed in high-risk industries, like they're tied to tourism and other industries that are the first to go when we see an economic downturn. So given its tourism-centered economy, New Orleans continues to see and feel the impacts of the pandemic at its core. The unemployment rate, as of August of this year, is 12.7 percent. The city currently has a budget deficit around $140 million or 20 percent of its budget for 2020, and there have yet to be any official projections released about the fiscal outlook for 2021. So a major concern is the potential losses of revenue from residents and businesses not being able to pay their property taxes next year, in addition to an even greater deficit in the sales tax revenue. So the ramifications from those deficits range from not being able to provide basic services to not having the funds to comply with local match requirements for federal grant dollars, which, given the fact that we're trying to recertify the levees that keep the Mississippi River out of New Orleans in the next three years, that's a huge existential question and concern. From there, the concerns also grow to what the city's bond rating is going to be and how that'll be impacted, and what the municipal bond market's going to look like over the next year as more cities are not able to address and meet their debt obligations. So while the community will continue to do all it can to support those in need, it's simply not enough. At present, we are seeing lines of cars more than two miles long hours before food pantries open. And so given the unemployment rate along with the possibility of a protracted economic downturn, it's critical to ensure an equitable recovery through policy and setting budget priorities. Now, instead of when the problem, you know, is fully understood to commit ourselves to food access shelter and safety for all residents and this is obviously an issue that's certainly not only in New Orleans but across the country. Thank you for that Ryan particularly that emphasis on ensuring that those budget priorities now food access shelter and safety. I want to turn to to Michael be Kelly. Michael is the executive director of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council. Michael Baltimore also has a significant tourism and hospitality industry is on that elastic elastic side of the resources that mean that the pandemic is going to hit the city pretty hard. What are you anticipating in terms of the city revenue effects and the ability of the city to support its residents going forward. Our hotels at this point, the ones that are open are operating at 20% capacity that they normally do. The nationwide and hotel industry unemployment rate is is at about 51%, which is double the unemployment rate nationally and the Great Depression and in Baltimore. The, the other thing that we're seeing, and I know a lot of cities are dealing with this is the this, the Venn diagram of the hospitality industry and these, these vulnerable industries and people of color and other vulnerable populations are. And what we're starting to see in Baltimore are communities that have traditionally been left behind being left further behind and being set up for a steeper fall down the road one interesting thing. We saw last week we got our first budget revenues of income tax for the state of Maryland for the period of March to August and the revenues were actually 6% higher than last year and that's a direct result of the cares act funding. And the unemployment rate is is hitting these vulnerable people it's hitting the individuals who make the lowest incomes. And they've really been propped up thus far with this extra federal support and when that goes away. We're really going to start seeing the ripple effects play out throughout city government. And Baltimore has some of the highest educational attainment levels in the country, paired with some of the lowest there's not a lot in between, and the folks at the lower end who are struggling already. It seems like they're really getting set up to be to be hit even harder. In the coming months when you start thinking about evictions you start thinking about some of the food pantry lines we're not seeing what New Orleans is yet but it's coming. And it's something we all need to be preparing for, and really hoping for more federal support to get us through this until we can reopen some of these businesses in a safe way. Thank you and thank you for speaking to the influx of that federal stimulus and what it means for the ecosystem, the economic ecosystem there so. Doug Hooker I'm going to turn to your to your colleague Doug Doug hooker is the executive director for the Atlanta regional Commission. Doug can you speak to what we're seeing in Atlanta, in terms of revenue in terms of shifting demographics and where, where the funds are coming from, but also what you imagine would be potential solutions to ensuring more inclusive recovery. Thank you Elena. I begin by just saying whatever Michael said ditto. Michael Kelly, because our cities have so many similarities and many respects through October, excuse me through September 1 of this year we've had over 126,000 jobs net loss in this region 40,000 of which are in the quality and tourism industries. And we, we know that in the Atlanta region almost 50% of the workers in those industries are people of color, which means that at least 50%, and probably more because disproportionately people are coloring the lower wage jobs in those industries we have had a hard hit ourselves. Overall our economy is taking a hit as everybody else's heads. We are beginning to see some pickup and employment in certain places. One of the things that helped us with a little bit of being resilient in this area is the fact that we're such a logistics and transportation hub, and even though sales taxes which you know gas taxes has decreased in the central areas of the region, it actually has held and in some cases in the outer part of the region gone up. But being a logistics hub and being that UPS, which has a huge presence here Google which has a huge presence Amazon that's as within the last year established three new distribution centers in the region, all with thousands of or the hiring. So they, they've had a lot of pickup. And so, in some respects we've been fortunate that that a number of people this place has been able to get some new employment it may not be at the levels they left but some new employment, which brings about a different kind of a problem for us and that we have a lot of people who are newly employed but they're under employed and have fewer hours, and they're looking ahead at the major challenges of having a vision moratoria lifted by the CDC as we approach the end of the year beginning the new year. They too are struggling even if they're employed with one or two or three jobs in some cases. Many of those households are struggling with food insecurity. Our Atlanta community food bank and its affiliates throughout the region. At the beginning of the pandemic saw more than a 35% spike in food assistance needs, and although that has waned a little bit it's still well above pre pandemic levels. And we're trying to figure out some ways to build the systemic capacities of local communities to help continue to feed their, their people who are going to be in need as we see that having for a long time that will probably play out for at least two or three years to come. We think that our economy writ large in the Metro Atlanta region is probably going to bounce back to close to pre pandemic employment, except in hospitality and tourism, probably within two or three years. Hospitality and tourism we're thinking is a four to five year at best, and that's keeping our fingers crossed that it doesn't get worse in the meantime. So those are some of the kinds of things we're seeking the city of Atlanta itself, which is the central city of our region. Because George and me, most of our cities and counties are largely property tax tax base that's a significant part of their revenue. As Michael Pagano alluded to, they have not seen a huge impact in property tax loss yet. And that's happening throughout the state in fact, and that coupled with the loans that carries that loans from the government have enabled most of our cities and counties to withstand the loss of the sales tax revenue so so far we have not seen huge layoffs amongst our public sector partners we haven't seen a lot of furloughs. They've been cautious, but we haven't seen that effect. However, we do think next year, after the property tax values have gone down will probably start seeing some of that. So they're being cautious at this point in time and of course, it'll depend on what happens in Washington whether more federal assistance will be coming but the worst of it has been felt in the private sector in the hospitality and tourism industries and other low wage jobs in our region. Doug, I know you also have worked significantly on workforce development for the region and and you had plans underway before the pandemic hit it with the projections that the hospitality and tourism have more of a lag of four to five year lag. Is there a particular emerging industry that is ripe for for growth of training space that you're looking at. Thank you. That's a good point. We had our regional workforce systems extremely fragmented ecosystem. And before the pandemic hit several major community institutions the Metro Atlantic Chamber, the United Way for Greater Atlanta the Community Foundation Greater Atlanta and my organization Atlanta regional commission had spearheaded along with the Arthur and blank foundation and initiative to to look at how we might strengthen our workforce ecosystem and literally a week before the pandemic hit. We had launched that effort and it's called equity at work, and it's specifically how we can streamline improve the outreach the training and the coordination between the different workforce elements public and and nonprofit in order to lift the quality of training. Because we call it deliberately equity work because we wanted to specifically focus on the plight and the challenges of black and brown people with the lowest income, lowest end of our wage earning scale, try to get them back into their skills boosted in order to get higher levels of wages. And many of those hospitality and tourism workers we will be looking to focus this effort as it emerges over the next year or two specifically on getting them a skill set that will enable them to transfer to a different role, whether it's logistics whether it's the burgeoning film industry that we have here in the state, which has been on a cessation because of the pandemic but we expect that it will probably pick up again. So, we're looking at specifically growth industries like that we can begin to help those workers have options for moving their careers in different directions and higher levels of employment down the road. Perfect. Thank you for that. Thank you. And, and next we have Mary Sue Barrett, who is the president of the Metropolitan Planning Council at in the city of Chicago. Mary Sue, can you speak to us about what you're saying I know you're specifically working on strategic planning with the city so can you, can you see, tell us what you're saying in terms of the impact of coven in terms of city revenue, and in the ability to reimagine how the city can work to ensure that recovery is inclusive. Absolutely. It's really an honor to be part of this panel and I know that you are using today to sort of pivot from a look at the emergency response to the longer term and equitable recovery and that's exactly where we are. I was also reflecting on as, as my colleagues have shared just quick snapshots, each one of you have shared something that is devastating. You know, that is laying bare all of our inequalities, and you emphasize something that is a strength. So I think at this moment, every region, the city of Chicago and the Chicago region, no different is pushing the reset button and recognizing that there is no, there's no straight line recovery. There's no coming back to normal. And one of the things we know painfully to be true is that while we've had a lot of episodic planning efforts in Chicago, we have not since the mid 60s had a citywide comprehensive plan. And boy, entering a pandemic, if we had had one in our pocket, that would have been a huge advantage. So, three years ago, the Metropolitan Planning Council, which is a independent change maker organization partnered with the Urban Institute, and lots and lots of local partners to produce a cost of segregation study. And that was our quantification of something that we long, long knew. For example, it demonstrated that an African American wage earner would earn more than $3,000 more per year if we were just average for economic and racial segregation. So the main takeaway of those findings was that we had to embed equity in all policies and in every institution. So that was kind of a methodical, you know, kind of change leaders were leaning into that, but not every institution. Our new mayor Lori Lightfoot clearly was when all of this hit us. And so today now the city of Chicago has committed in its recovery blueprint to embark on a citywide comprehensive plan. It's going to take years. It's called We Will Chicago. And they have opened up the process in a way that I think all of us can learn from. We just had a bunch of workshops last week. And it's grounded in the city's priorities, which I think is something we can all embrace about centering diversity and equity and resilience in these plans. But I want to just emphasize the point of the how we decide how we interrogate anti-racism, how we embed anti-racism, how we interrogate white supremacy and other power dynamics in the who's invited, what structures are utilized, are we taking the emergency fast track response as we had to for the immediate response or are we taking a more thoughtful power sharing approach. And that's what I'm, you know, a little bit encouraged about. We have some really tough decisions to make because, frankly, every map I could show you of the city of Chicago or the Chicago region on our challenges is the same map. It's the destiny by zip code devastation that we are struggling with. So this is about not coming back slowly as Dean Pagano's graphs cautioned us about. I mean, if this is a 12 to 13 year or worse recovery, we've got to go about it differently to make sure that the same families and communities and sectors are not sidelined again. The statewide plan is just one effort, but philanthropy and business, all of those strengths that are really unique to Chicago have to be put together in a way that they have never been before and that's, that's really hard work, and it should be uncomfortable. It needs to be uncomfortable for us to make progress. Thank you so much for that very soon. I'm thrilled to have the lens of the comprehensive the city comprehensive plan, because I think that more cities should be engaging in this now as you said this is a time for reset. And in time for thinking through and if we had those plans at our disposal that we could have built upon a different infrastructure for relief efforts correct. So, with that I want to turn it over to my friend to want to black who's the founder and CEO of the Center for Economic Inclusion in Minneapolis. John at Minneapolis has been at the epicenter of the national consciousness with the discussion of policing reform and and structural racism. But I also know that that there is a lot happening in terms of equity and centering equity in Minneapolis, especially with regard to economic investments so I'm wondering, can you share with us what your, what your concerns are with the new and the city's ability to meet the needs of the communities that we care about, and any proposed solutions that you have. Absolutely well first thank you for the invitation to join on this morning I would also follow the comments of my colleagues earlier and in particular Mary Subaru to say a big ditto as it relates to how we think about mitigating our values our approaches and our actions and ensuring that there's real alignment that is absolutely what we've been elevating here in Minneapolis and St. Paul and across the state. And even the nation to say that that is the approach that we have to take as we think about both the impacts of COVID-19 and the pandemic on our communities and our economy but certainly then following that here in Minneapolis St. Knowing that as we reckon with kind of the awareness I would say that most of us have now the depths of racism and the permanent stain that it's having on our entire communities. As we've shown here that it's not only police violence that many Minnesotans become so consciously aware of here but also policy violence that we see throughout so many sectors of our communities and in particular, our economy that we must begin to reckon with in our cities and as Mary Sue illustrated on when it comes to comprehensive plans here in our community. Just a couple of years ago, we had the opportunity to support many of our cities and counties with going deeper on their 2040 comp plans to ensure that racial equity and in particular actual measurable goals and policies were embedded in everything from planning and yet land land use development to business attraction retention and growth. Housing and workforce development that those comp plans now become broken down into annual yearly plans around economic competitiveness and growth. We don't just see racial equity as something that we teeter on on the sides or as one chapter in those plans, but it actually must be centered in those plans as a strategy not just to mitigate as a part of growth but really as the center of growth and so we're seeing that in Ramsey County as we build out a 10 year plan for growth and seeing a way to think about reparations as a strategy again for expanding growth in the county. We're seeing that across the state as we see more and more leaders reckoning with the fact that as long as we don't fully understand why it is that we find ourselves in this place of seeing more than 50% of African Americans having filed for unemployment since March and more than 40% of Native Americans having filed for unemployment since March as long as we don't really get the why behind that the why behind the depths of his systemic racism. Still in our employers still in our company still in our public sector, we won't change it so we must drastically change the way we operate drastically change the way we relate to one another and create real places and spaces of racial inclusion and belonging in order to have that post COVID America that many of us really hope for an aspire to have. Thank you for that. How important it is for us under to understand the why, if we're going to actually address the inequity as part of recovery and beyond and be able to respond to multiple crises. The next time goes on so let me I'd like to turn this over now to our respondent. I'm delighted to introduce Maria Rosario Jackson, who is a senior advisor at the Kresge Foundation, and a professor at Arizona State University, I shall so serve as a respondent and react to what she heard. Maria went through a unique process with the Heinz Foundation in thinking through strategic planning and how to respond and moments of crisis. And I'm hoping that she'll share what she's heard from from this conversation and then also ask our panelists a question or two based on her perspective. Thank you Elena and it's such a privilege to be on a panel with or to respond to a panel of practitioners. So, thank you first of all for all that you're doing in the cities where you're you're working. I heard many things that got my attention that include the typical approach, which is important and that is this notion of how do we get back to pre COVID states, let's say, and and I think that it's important. Those are important benchmarks. I'm also thinking of this particular period in history as some I heard some of you say an opportunity for reset an opportunity to think differently about what a post COVID America could look like. And I was struck by the use of the term long term recovery and long term recovery can be referential to the pre COVID metrics, if you will, or conditions that that so many of you put forward. I think though, another interpretation of long term recovery takes us way back. And recovery not just from COVID but recovery from decades and decades centuries of racism and other kinds of historical marginalization that we are having to reckon with now. The idea of long term recovery might be reinterpreted to include something that compels us to imagine very differently what a post COVID America looks like. I wanted to echo Tawana in framing the aspiration as, and this is not your language but it's what I heard as as a set of re envisioned relationships and power arrangements and different ways of thinking about what success looks like. When Elena and invited me into this conversation. I was reminded of something that that I was involved with when I was at the Urban Institute, many years ago. And it was some work that I did with with the Heinz endowments and at the time they were trying to orient their program strategies to an equity agenda. And there was a process that I designed for them and execute it that really brought together a very diverse and not just racially and demographically diverse but perspective professional perspective diverse as well. A set of players that included developers, both nonprofit and for profit people in the health field education, social work, artists, arts administrators, and we were really asking the question, what would this pivot to equity look like. And the default has always been I and I heard some of it here and it's important, a default to economic aspirations and indicators. So you know how are we faring economically and that is for sure important I would never want to diminish that. That said, what came out of this process many years ago was a different North Star. And it wasn't just about economic recovery, it was about thinking of what are the conditions that allow people to live out their full potential. And if that was the North Star, economics is certainly a part of it, but it is in service of this other thing. And how we orient to a North Star that allows for this much more nuanced and comprehensive way of understanding, are we doing okay. Are we moving in the right direction. I think it's important to bring that up now in this moment that might be a reset in this moment that allows us to imagine something very different that gets way beyond just recovery to pre COVID marks, let's say. So that's what I would like to offer is an expansion or a reorientation of the North Star if you will and just for a moment to think about if the North Star was creating the conditions where all people and especially historically marginalized communities and communities that have been the targets of racism and other kinds of structural exclusion. What are the conditions that allow people to reach their full potential. And how is it inclusive of economic indicators and the kinds of aspirations that that we default to, but what else would we need to look at. And how would our structures need to be arranged differently. And what does accountability look like with this different North Star. So I'll pause with that and and offer it as a question or a way to maybe expand the conversation that we're having this morning. Thank you. Thank you. I value that question I very much appreciate that framing and I'd like to ask, you know, one or two of our panelists, if you, if you feel compelled to respond to that what would our structures look like if we, if our North Star was focused more closely on ensuring that communities that have been historically disinvested in and have been the victims of structural racism. If we were to ensure that all of our communities were able to reach their fullest potential. What would the structures look like that would be able to to support that. What are the policy approaches or that we could turn to you think that that are flexible enough to to invest in that way. And or and what has your experience been I guess to date. I'm thinking about Mary Sue with the comprehensive city plan. What is your experience been trying to embed this sort of perspective in policy and practice. I also appreciate that frame I would say we are fully embracing it, and it's, it's like an awkward, an awkward embrace right now. So what we've got as a strength as I was hinting at is this very long tradition of business engagement, civic engagement. But we're all, you know, kind of dispersed in our lanes. And of course, the isolation of this moment makes everything harder. But having elected officials who are talking about equity I mean we are, we are sending centering equity in every issue you would think about it as naturally coming up on housing debates, for example. But as we're distributed distributing some new dollars at the state level on transportation equity criteria about how those dollars get dispersed. We know our essential workers are transit dependent, we are dependent on them. And so we better make sure that if we're targeting retooling of transit services that we're serving those places where people are relying on transit more. We know that there's opportunities to develop vacant land nearby or transit stations to become a hub. We know we've got a huge lead pipe problem throughout Illinois which is so tied to public health and could be part of the recipe for a job generating strategy to put people to work on the green economy to bring both health and economic expansion. So, you know, these are all things where equity will will lead you to prioritize different things, work with different people, even as our philanthropic partners like the Chicago Community Trust are thinking through their next wave of leadership roles across philanthropy. There's collaboration that I haven't seen before on data mapping on consulting across philanthropy government and business on where do we have to go to the past. Where how can we really be catalytic because we know we can't do it separately. And I think that that does speak to Maria's point about. It's definitely not not about recovery to normal we reject our past. I mean our past is, is like it's ingrained from redlining maps. It this is, this goes back to the 1940s, you know, and Chicago has not broken that mold, and this is our moment. We have to so we're, we're all over that framework. How to do it is what we're, it's real time design. I, Elena, I'd like to jump in. I think one of the issues in response to what Maria was saying is that I think pre COVID, when we would think about economic and inclusion in major cities, we almost had to parallel approaches. We would have one approach or is for people who were living in poverty and under employed underskilled under educated, we had to figure out something to do with them. And then over here, we would have a whole other economic strategy that was growth based on growth based on a regional, a regional approach for the entire region to grow and connect to the national economy, how to become very competitive. The two were completely disconnected. Maybe there was a small they kept called, you know, this small on ramp well maybe one day the people who are very poor might be able to participate but highly doubtful. And I think what's happening now is that because COVID has become the great equalizer, everybody got sick. And you, whether you were a thriving business or a very small low income neighborhood business, there's a really good chance that your business is not doing very well. There is an opportunity for us to think about how we can actually actually make sure that all of this all of these businesses grow. Everyone is a part of a large of a larger regional economic development strategy where everyone can benefit. And this is the first time to be quite honest with you that we've been able to have that kind of conversation in a really, really long time. There's a lot of, you're not hearing that same kind of nuance, who deserves the high wage job that we used to in a lot of these conversations and so I think it creates a whole new opportunity for strategy for cooperation for investment that we haven't had before. Elena, if I could. Oh, actually, to want to end up. Thanks. I wanted to touch on something both Anika hit it on, but I also wanted to highlight something Maria touched on in terms of just how we both. Yes, move the needle on the economic indicators but also begin to challenge ourselves a bit in terms of being able to stick to going deeper on the humanity of things. I think those things are just so deeply embedded in the way that we operate that even when we think we're doing something new, we're really not we're still operating in this paradigm that's not new that's not different that isn't really getting at those embedded power structures that never really get at the racism that's just embedded in the way that we operate. And I think there's something about our structures that we need to really continue to interrogate so even as Mary Sue was talking I was envisioning our own work here in Minneapolis St. Paul about how we sometimes think about inviting others to our table as the work as opposed to thinking about what tables are we not going to because we already have our table set. And so where are those communities who have been convening who have been doing the work where we actually need to see power in order to be able to see humanity. I'm quite a bit differently right and need to be able to think about, yes, business has a lot of work to do. Government has a lot of work to do. And yet if the solutions were actually there the work would already be done racial wealth gaps have not moved at all in more than 50 years. And so if the solutions were there, it would already be done the solutions exist in black indigenous and communities of color. And yet we keep convening tables and applauding ourselves because we created two more seats for people in those communities to come sit who frankly already have power, instead of taking ourselves to their table and being welcome guest and sitting there respectfully and humbly and learning at those tables. And that's the work that might have a shot at actually moving the cares act dollars that flow to local and and county and state government dollars freed us to be able to do things drastically different, but in small amounts of time, freed us to be able to put dollars in black and brown hands that we never put in their hands with free limitations right. And yet we're saying in local government right now, wait a minute we're not going to be able to give our standard dollars our standard with dollars our standard economic development dollars to those same nonprofit organizations with this liberty come January because it's the federal dollars that don't come with restrictions. Why not right now we should be using public sector time to build private sector alliances to ensure that come January, when that next round of investment comes that is not so freely given that we are breaking in order to get results that we've never gotten in communities by funding the very solutions that those communities know work and trusting those individuals with dollars that we typically only trust mainstream large white led institutions with. We've got to free ourselves from the rules that have kept this economy broken, because if we continue down this path, we will get the same results we're getting today. Today, we already know we're putting white workers back to work at twice the rate. We are putting black, native and Latin X workers back to work. We are already doing the same thing in the name of inclusion. We have got to free ourselves from mindsets that we use, but are not actually producing the rose results that we all espouse we've got to interrogate our actions, even when in the name of doing the right thing, we don't produce the right results. Thank you so much to wanna and and even when it comes to breaking the rules, there, there is something to be said about the fact that the next round of federal whatever support should also break the rules it should not be the same old same old. And do you want to decide what have a comment. I do. I just wanted to agree wholeheartedly with what to want to said I think I do a lot of disaster recovery and response work and the challenges here that we've responded to economic shock and crisis the same way. Since the dawn of the country. We make sure that businesses are propped up that structure stay in place instead of calling the question and saying, we need to have an equity centered economy. We have to ask why these structures are in place. Do they really serve a function? Do they not just push for it and promote inclusion but actually change the livelihoods of families and intergenerational wealth. So instead of having the same stimulus packages we've had, you know, since the depression, we need to call a question about how the system functions and move into how to mitigate the issues that it's created over time. Eliminate those hurdles and make sure that people can actually function in an economy that promotes people living out real lives that aren't full of struggle and strife. I think what I'm hearing is how do we get unstuck. Right, we're stuck in some patterns and some frameworks that are not that promising. And have been proven or disproven in the past. So I think to the question of how do you break rules. So there's another question which is how do you make new rules. And how do we how we get unstuck. I think that's that's where we are. Well, I think I think that we have other reflections from our panelists, but Molly, I want to turn it over to you to see if we have questions from the audience or commentary from the audience about this issue of, of how do we center equity. How do we get unstuck. How do we change the structures that have gotten us to this outcome, this disparate outcome. Sure. And personally I would just like to say I don't often come to work and leave with more hope of it thanks to this panel I certainly love the hopeful energy. While we wait for a couple more questions to come in. I have a question about where we just were talking about the new metrics for success in this country what does it mean, does it mean to be happy, stable mobile we know that it's often come down to a kind of a bank balance kind of a very classical capitalist way. What are your best thinking about metrics that speak to humanity. What does that look like if I gave you a magic wand today. And you know I'm going to come to you and Nika first. I gave you the magic wand your queen for a day and you get to leverage this new humanity centered metric for economic and world success where you start. I think what we need to know, and I think this was what was really important about Maria's statement was that you can't be economically viable. Unless the other parts of your humanity is also growing and viable. So if we're able to measure one of the arguments I've been having, you know, right now on one of these many committees, as we're building new economic strategies is where to put things like childcare and internet access on the, the metrics for success. Right. And right now what's very what we end up doing is putting that in other, as opposed to thinking about childcare and education as an essential metric that we need to be looking at as to whether or not we're actually being successful and providing the access for that the support for that the safety for that. So these are metrics that actually connect to your quality of life at home that are not necessarily an economic development indicator, but can certainly determine whether or not you can improve economically. And so have how we push on these other things that affect that affect all of these households, and how well they're doing, you could also say the same thing for access to medical care. Detroit is considered like one is considered the third top underserved medically city in the country. We're on like a rural level in terms of access to hospitals. And so that we don't connect that to our economic viability also and so that's that would be really what I would want to see as well. That's so helpful and you can you're getting some nods and cheers in the back channel here. You talked about some of the practical barriers the things that allow us to be our whole selves whether that's a caretaker, a mother, a healthy human being one practical barrier to this economic development recovery is going to be getting to jobs and getting around as people are forced to move by by housing displacement or changes in the urban core and so Michael Kelly I'd like to come to you because Baltimore I think like a lot of cities has folks who live in one place and work in another, and that can be particularly challenging for some of our lowest paid folks and folks who are going to be moving around a lot right now. Can you share with me kind of what your your big vision is for making sure that transportation remains equitable and supported as tax bases are likely going to shift with folks moving in the aftermath of this covert financial, I will say collapse I'll say decline so sure. Thanks for the question so prior to coven. We were seeing 80% of our new job growth more than 10 miles from downtown so jobs brawl was already in full effect in the Baltimore region. The city maintains less than it used to but still maintains a central role as an employer but we're already seeing jobs move out to the different jurisdictions and our transit system is designed to move people in and out of Baltimore City. Just in the last month. Our state Department of Transportation and Maryland is unique. Among sort of densely populated states in that we have a statewide transit agency. They announced huge cuts to to Baltimore transit, including deep cuts to the core bus network and through a outpouring of advocacy from the grassroots to the businesses. Our transit agency has sort of seen the light and decided to reverse those cuts but it doesn't. It hasn't done anything to sort of address what's coming and address the changes that are coming in and a lot of it when we think about getting people to work. I don't think that transit is going to be able to take people as far as they can but I'm actually thinking much more about internet access and about starting to treat that as utility and to start treating access to work because access to work for me right now is in my basement and how can we start providing that access for people who could tell the work. I'm thinking of these traditional modes of physically moving people from one place to another. When that just sort of pigeonholes individuals into jobs that that, you know, are going to have economic limits. So it's, it's, I guess two things it's important through this to make sure that we're making public transportation, safe reliable and efficient for our operators and for our riders, especially individuals, but also that we're not thinking about access to jobs strictly as a physical thing, and that we can start thinking about ways to better connect all citizens to employment opportunities through the internet. Thank you so much Michael so so coming from the very concrete they're very practical to something that is a little harder to put our finger on Mary raises in the chat that it can be hard for federal and state agencies to address the concepts of race. Sometimes use the fallback why can't really say that I can't be explicit and some people are just personally uncomfortable talking about this. So to want to you raised a really important question about the need to balance private and public sector action and let the private sector, especially folks in marginalized communities who had good ideas for decades, come to the forefront. Can you talk a little bit about leveraging private actors to get some of these hard issues at the front of the line at the front of the line of things we address. Absolutely. Some of the work that we do here at the Center for Economic Inclusion is provide deep consulting services directly to both large and mid sector employers who both have the capacity to deeply impact whether it's employment, procurement or investing directly in communities but who need to make that shift from diversity and inclusion programs and strategies, many of which haven't been able to go the distance in being able to close racial wealth gaps or grow our regional economies and those who may not have been able to start and really target their investments but have that capacity to then help them put in deeper policies practices and procedures, but also the data mechanisms to be able to measure those impacts and adjust them when needed, and to do that work hand in hand with community so that it's not kind of one sector over tipping the other but to be sure they're working and walking hand in hand measuring the impacts of that work and having a local impact and community like ours that has several global corporations, Fortune 500 corporations who could easily have an impact but have that impact be spread across many other cities, many of your cities, but where we really need to see that impact taking here in Minneapolis, St. Paul to be able to partner with them to ensure that they're measuring their impact. Yes, another club us communities but also here to be able to partner to say how what are the types of businesses that can create themselves that can also provide goods and services in particular that we know those businesses are going to be able to purchase that can also create family sustaining jobs and help them measure things like supplier diversity, not only through a measurement of say what your spend in a particular category, but how many family sustaining jobs did that spend to create so that they're really hyper conscious of local impact at a time like this when we need those businesses to be growing we need them to be growing jobs and all of us measuring the same things year over year and doing some root cause analysis of the reasons why these types of programs resulted in the type of change we all want to have keeps us away from the polarization of just kind of pointing fingers and assuming that it's your fault or my fault or our charitable giving didn't result in closing racial wealth gaps. To a real all in strategy that also can be married to those public sector investments we talked about earlier to really stimulate our economy and ensure that we're all marching down the same path toward changing the gaps that we have right now. It also ensures that if by chance the strategy that one corporation or one business takes or several take isn't the right strategy we can change that in real time in order to adjust it and get back on track. Thank you so much to wanna Mary Sue I have a sneaking suspicion you might have something to add to that. Yeah, I'd be happy to I was thinking as to I was speaking that measurement really matters and language really matters and there's a bit of a get over it that's going through my brain you know that we all have to not shy away from language that that you know makes people uncomfortable momentarily but get at the at the root causes so we've learned a lot from places like Indianapolis, the twin cities with the center who have figured out a rubric for shared decision making so we talk a lot in Chicago about closing the racial wealth gap. But we have also identified other gaps there's a community participation gap. There's a government efficiency gap. There is a obviously a life expectancy gap. And so putting a shared quantification on here's what we're trying to achieve. And so that that then opens up a very honest conversation about the old ways of doing things not working and instead of starting with the the policy solutions that might be comfortable for me or for someone else to really go to those already convened tables those community collaboratives that do exist and ask, Okay, this is unprecedented for all of us, including you, what do you need in this moment what will work in this moment and then to, to connect that with the shared with the shared measurement and getting, getting a new rubric of language as well is really important to talk about that economic, you know that magic wand you were asking about before the, the economic success means full participation, so that when the next pandemic be it be it environmental, or economic, or health. When that next stress hits us that we are prepared with with systems that are that are undergirding the pathways to full participation because we we've built that from scratch in a holy holy different way. It's really helpful and I think both you and and to one and others are getting wild raves in the chat for really being honest and talking about these levers of white supremacy and the ways that we have to just get very real about the about the language here. Now Doug speaking of getting real you were pretty plain spoken about the fact that some of the jobs that have held Atlanta at the center for so long may not come back in the same way, and that we need to build pathways for residents to new earning potential. That being said, when folks go back to those jobs that that will remain in hospitality or retail or things that are honorable jobs that often underpaid. How are folks in your community going to have a conversation about improved wages about wages that have remained so unfair, especially across racial and gender lines for so long. Any big plan there. The, I think the honest answer is no. There is no thought from certainly high level political leadership, and Georgia has long prided itself, political political leaders in Georgia long prided themselves on us being the low cost state, which means they don't really care about huge costs, but I think the reality that a lot of our business leaders, ironically enough, are seeing is that low wage jobs means a low wage community. And then we're here suffering because submit so such a large share of our households are low wage income earners. And I think there's a bit of a revelation going on that we need to rethink how we remove barriers of access to growth and careers, so that people no matter where they start on the income ladder and no matter what zip code they start and have a true opportunity to be able to grow their wage capacity there. They're earning capacity but part of that too is also an interest in promoting a lot more entrepreneurship, the overwhelming number of jobs amongst black people in Atlanta are by small businesses, small black owned businesses. And that may be true the rest of the country but I don't know that but I know for sure that's what it is in the Atlanta region. And therefore, how do we put more money, more thought more access more energy and resources into ensuring that those small business owners can grow their business, because they will tend to hire more more black individuals black and brown individuals. And how can we help those who haven't had the access of capital and resource and expertise to start a job I may have a good idea maybe just as entrepreneurial anybody else, get those opportunities and there is a concerted effort being led by the Venture Atlanta Chamber. Among several us to talk about how we have an inclusive economic development strategy that puts direct financial resource and expertise and relationship building into the black community between small black owned businesses and larger typically minority owned businesses. And we don't know exactly where that's going but I like the energy of it. And there is as you said earlier Molly there's hopefulness and, and there's intentionality to it and I think that's really critically important that some of our most senior business and economic leaders are being very intentional and publicly stating this is something we've got got to call ourselves into account to do. We don't know where that's going to go, you know, and it sounds good right now but obviously the proof of the pudding is what actually comes out of it, but that's what's being talked about that's what's being thought about, and publicly not just privately and I think that along with our efforts at the equity of work program to be intentional in what we do with our economic, excuse me I work with development strategies to target and improve the wage capacity of black and brown people. Those two have hope I think for putting us in a different place years from now. Thank you so much that you talk about the importance of metro action and state action and the influence of state kind of mindset. Ryan your city is no stranger to federal flow and federal interest and federal aid. From your perspective from your local perspective how should federal folks invest in this era of racial inclusion and equity. How should it flow what can local actors do what do you need federal actors to do. I think immediately we've got to have a real conversation about local match requirements. I mean, people are not going to get the money together to be able to do a lot of large scale projects to do workforce investments so we're going to have to figure out how to how to do that and also make sure that I think part of it is the scale. We're not looking at solutions that fit individual cities we're looking at solutions that fit states and at the federal level. And we need custom tailored solutions based on population and what people are seeing so I think, you know through comprehensive zoning efforts and planning efforts we get information and data. And I think one of those things and aggregate it with a voice to go to the federal government and say, this is what New Orleans specifically needs. This is what Indianapolis needs. This is what Minneapolis needs. I'm sure there's a lot of commonality there, but I think the challenge has been that it's been a one size fits all. And it assumed that the economy was going to keep doing what it was doing. It was assuming that trade and everything else was going to remain constant, and all those things have failed. It's a disaster you have to look at what what is broken and fix it completely instead of just trying to patch work it together. So I think for a lot of New Orleans it really is just basic needs that need to be met and then immediate term and even over the next couple of years around. What are we going to do with making commercial spaces how can we help get those into the affordable housing market. How can we look at building jobs over time. If you look at the core, the funding needs to be tied to actually bring you about equitable change and using a set of indicators that are dictated by the localities to move them forward. Thank you, Ryan, Michael Pagano same question what what are your goals and tips for good federal investment and equity and inclusion. I agree with what Ryan says the we need to change a lot of the federal match requirements, make them much more connected to the two capacity and ability of municipalities and states to to support what they what they can and not to do the one size fits all. And but the it's tied. I think my response to the question is tied to the larger issue of the fact that cities and states operate under a balanced budget requirement. So that when you saw this that in the earlier slides of a rapid decline in resources, it meant that there had to have been a corresponding change in what the city did usually in in in a downward outweigh. Only the federal government has the that kind of national oversight responsibility for ensuring that all all residents have access to at least a minimum level of services that it's not dependent upon the wealth of that particular municipality whether it can afford it or not. And I would, I would add to that that to Maria's point about the North Star that the North Star has to include some understanding of on whose shoulders are the cost of providing public services falling. We have a, we have a tax structure, especially at the local level, not so much not speak at the federal now for the moment, but at the local level we have a tax structure that falls heavily and disproportionately on the poor. And to the extent that many of those cities are also where there are large concentrations of black and brown communities it's falling on that community as well. And how is it what think of what most what a lot of cities do try to adjust when they need to raise more revenue where do they go to they go to the sales tax. The sales tax is one of the narrowest based taxes that we have that fall disproportionately on low income people, because most of their income is being used to to spend on on goods that are taxed. The sales taxes are on on tangible goods, and not on what the consumer's dollars spent on nationally the consumer's dollar today, nearly two thirds of the consumption dollar goes to services, and very few services are taxed about only about a third now goes to tangible goods so we have a tightening narrowing of the base which falls disproportionately on on the on those communities so as we think about the North Star. I think we we also need to include the notion that certain communities are bearing the costs of public services disproportionately to what they provide into the opportunities that they're that they are afforded. The federal government can make a difference, and I'm, I'm losing hope, but I thought at one time that we would have another relief for state local governments, but right now we are running out of running out of time, and it's going to it's going to come heavily on cities and states, because they can't run a deficit. I want to make sure that we come to Maria before we go back to Elena for the final word. Maria, your North Star concept has come up again and again. So bless us with one final word about the North Star and where you'd like to see us pointing. I do, you know, it's hard sometimes but I do try to stay hopeful and believe that if there is the will, we can deal with root causes. But until we figure out how to deal with root causes and until we figure out how to not just break the rules but make new rules. We're going to stay stuck and I think building the muscle to do something different and also recognize that progress may not look like we've always expected progress to look if part of the work is about rearranging relationships, dismantling some structures, we need to feel disoriented. And it's it's challenging to say this, but we should welcome that feeling of disorientation, because that's what progress is going to feel like for a while. So I'll stop with that. Thank you. Thank you so much Elena. I think every point to end on if we are doing something right, it should feel a bit uncomfortable. There should be some disorientation, but it is a necessary is necessary phase of progress. So let's please give a virtual round of applause to all of our panelists. Thank you for that thought provoking discussion and more importantly thank you for the important work that you're doing for each of our communities. So our audience knows that a taping of this webinar will be memorialized on New America's YouTube site and on the urban America forward website. We should, we should all see where we are a year or two from now, see how we have been able to disrupt these systems that have gotten us into such an inequitable circumstance. We all have summary briefs and highlights of the themes of this discussion that will also be shared with you and available on both of those sites. As I mentioned this is the final webinar in the coven 19 equitable relief and recovery series so if you miss any of the previous webinars feel free to check them online. Again, I'd like to thank all of our panelists for being with us today, by an all bright and you could get a foster Mary Sue Barry, Maria Rosario Jackson, Michael Kelly Doug hooker Michael Bacano to wanna black. I got all of you. Thank you so much. And a special thank you to our partners new America local and the National Urban League, our sponsors the crazy foundation and the any Casey foundation we have our work cut out for us. Thank you for your interest and energy and reimagining and ensuring that our communities have an equitable recovery.