During a recent city government leadership seminar, which featured several faculty members from the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development, SPPD Dean Jack H. Knott noted that the role of local governments is vital to the future of the country.

“Local leaders face challenges that are not easy – from violence to gangs to homelessness,” Knott said. “They also have inadequate resources relative to the magnitude of these challenges.

“If anything is going to happen in our communities, it will start at the local level.”

Finding solutions to the issues facing city leaders was the focus of the National League of Cities’ Leadership Training Institute three-day conference, held Jan. 29-31 at the Omni Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The league is a nonprofit association of municipal governments, representing more than 19,000 U.S. cities and townships.

The event, co-sponsored by SPPD, the City of West Hollywood and the League of California Cities, drew dozens of city officials, including mayors, from all parts of the country.

In the seminar’s opening remarks, Knott stressed the significance of preparing local leaders to address today’s complex social problems.

“In the very near future, the enormous retirements of the baby boomers will create a major leadership gap,” he said. “It has become exceedingly clear that, in those transitions, new skills are truly needed. Future leaders must be able to work across the public, private and nonprofit sectors, and thus, leadership training is more important now than ever.”

Former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros added that local officials also can help mitigate the current housing crisis.

“The country is at a point where it’s looking to its elected officials to be honest, to be helpful – to be part of the solution,” said Cisneros, a member of the SPPD board of councilors and chairman of CityView, a national real estate investing company. “And nowhere is that more critical than in the housing arena. Housing has not been on the forefront of local officials’ agendas, but it should be and can be.

“Local governments can weigh in with banks and local mortgage companies. They can encourage forbearance on the part of the companies to extend terms, to lower interest rates and make it possible for families to stay in their homes.”

In addition, Rich Callahan, SPPD associate dean and director of state capital and leadership programs, conducted a series of exercises with the city officials, aimed at developing and applying a strategy model for leadership.

“There are two main challenges – moving information and moving people,” Callahan said. “Leaders create possibilities by bringing vision and clarity.”

At the end of the opening day session, several SPPD graduate students met with public officials to engage in policy consultation.

The students will have the opportunity to assist these local governments with issues involving affordable housing, redevelopment and effective strategies for building coalitions within a diverse urban community.

According to Raphael Bostic, professor and director of SPPD’s master of real estate development program, students will have about one to two months to work on a specific project.

“This is the very first time we have done this,” Bostic said. “This is a new program, and it’s a tremendous opportunity to showcase our talent before the professional world.

“This program enables students to gain an up-close perspective on real communities with real questions and issues, and have to solve them within a real-world time frame. This shows students how public officials view the challenges they face. And they get to understand the trade-offs involved, the costs and benefits that must be considered in doing these types of things.”

Bostic added that students help bring a “fresh set of eyes” to problems that cities have been dealing with for an extended period.

“They help guide the officials by using the latest, most recent thinking about the solutions to these kinds of public problems.”