In late July, the National League of Cities released its 2024 State of the Cities report,, which sets forth the top priorities for the nation’s mayors based on thorough review of their annual state of the cities addresses as well as a survey of mayors.

As NLC’s CEO and Executive Director Clarence E. Anthony was quoted in an NLC Release, “Our State of the Cities report offers a nuanced understanding of the priorities that are top of mind for local leaders, the obstacles they’re confronting, and the innovative solutions they are deploying to meet these challenges head on.”

The dominant themes according to the mayors, and the percentage of them who identified them were: 

• Economic and workforce development (32%)

• Infrastructure (24%)

• Housing (14%)

• Public safety (10%)

• Public health (9%).

The NLC has been conducting this research for 11 years and this is the first time that housing was lofted to the top three areas of concern for the nation’s mayors. That’s not a surprise, as the “housing crisis,” has been getting more and more attention. In fact, 60% of the mayors surveyed reported that the housing available in their cities was “less than satisfactory.”

This year, the NLC also did research into the public sentiment’s about the most pressing areas that they see in their cities through an analysis of social media engagement (primarily X, formerly known as Twitter). It appears that many of the mayors have their fingers on the pulse of their residents’ priorities. Infrastructure, for example, was most frequently mentioned by citizens, and it was number two on the mayor’s list.

 But the correlation is far from perfect. In fact, energy and education were two areas that residents appeared to be particularly concerned about, while they came up somewhat less frequently in the mayor’s list of priorities.

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