In making the announcement, Boise Mayor and Conference President H. Brent Coles told 300 mayors that, "the time is right for a new public-private national agenda to bring investment back to cities. Cities have never been better positioned to work with the private sector to attract investment capital into urban neighborhoods and communities," Coles said.

The Council for Investment in the New American City, chaired by Coles, was formed by the Conference and private sector representatives to remove barriers to the flow of capital into cities and their neighborhoods, and to encourage incentives and new development models that would make cities more livable and competitive.

The Council's charter members include the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, Citigroup, Countrywide Home Loans, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, American Management Services, and USFilter.

Andrew Woodward, President of the mortgage bankers group and Chairman of Bank of America Mortgage, told the Council that it needed to put housing back on the national agenda. "By working together, we can and must address the housing affordability issues that many of our younger families are facing today," he told the mayors.

Many mayors on the Council also voiced their concern over the housing problems in their cities. Boston Mayor Conference Advisory Board Chairman Thomas M. Menino said that cities need "real money for housing," and Charleston Mayor Joe Riley said that housing "cannot be produced in cities today without subsidies." Riley told his colleagues that a new national effort was needed in housing and that more assistance should be provided for first-time homebuyers.

Reno Mayor Jeff Griffin suggested that instead of using the term "affordable housing," the Council should talk about "quality housing for the working poor." "People need to understand that housing programs are not giveaways, but ways to help working families make it in life," he said.

 The mayors heard from Richard Ravitch, co-chair of the newly formed and congressionally chartered Millennial Housing Commission that will develop housing recommendations for submission to Congress in the spring of 2002. Ravitch told the mayors that rental housing plummeted after enactment of the 1986 tax law that trimmed incentives to developers and that changes in housing tax policy would be one area the commission will explore. He agreed to establish a close working relationship with the mayors during the course of the commission's work.

Rochester (NY) Mayor William A. Johnson, Jr., suggested to Ravitch and Council members that any national housing policy must be flexible enough to accommodate the dramatically different situations found in various regions of the country. "In Rochester, our problem is not a shortage of supply, but oversupply due to out-migration of people and slow economic growth," he said.

As part of its agenda, the Council released Best Practices from Albany Mayor Gerald D. Jennings and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown on innovative housing programs in their cities. Through a public-private partnership with the mortgage bankers and Fannie Mae, Albany has launched a downpayment assistance program as part of its new Home Center. In San Francisco, the mayor devotes over $100 million annually to the city's comprehensible affordable housing program to combat the spiraling cost of housing in the San Francisco Bay area.

Coles announced formation of a council working group, headed by Mayor Menino, to recommend a national housing strategy for the summit in April.