What U.S. Mayors Are Really Worried About

A few months ago, researchers at Boston University’s Menino Survey of Mayors polled the leaders of 126 U.S. cities and asked them what they were most concerned about. There were plenty of issues confronting these city officials: Since the start of the pandemic, pundits had speculated that the economic disruption and lifestyle shifts wrought by Covid-19 was imperiling downtown districts, and a troubling homicide spike was fueling new fears of mass migration from urban areas.

But the researchers found that there was a disconnect between the issues that often grabbed news headlines and dominated political talking points, and what mayors were really worried about as cities slowly reopened — only to be hit with yet another wave of coronavirus cases. According to their new report, 52% of the mayors surveyed cited mental health and trauma as one of two long-term consequences of the pandemic they were most concerned about, and 37% cited the toll on students who lost more than a year of in-person schooling.