The problems that face American families today are enormous: 45 million people lack health insurance, wages are stagnating, and inequality is on the rise. Our increasingly global economy has made workers more insecure.

These challenges require big solutions—from labor law reform to fair trade laws to health care reform.

I am more convinced than ever that metropolitan regions like Los Angeles have a vital role to play in combating poverty and environmental degradation. It is in cities that we experience some of the most damaging effects of national economic policies, from high poverty and crime rates to overcrowded housing to homelessness.

In recent years, urban areas have become the focus of intense interest as young professionals move back into central cities, and local governments embark on ambitious revitalization programs. As luxury high rises take shape next to tenements and homeless encampments, the failings of our current economic course are made visibly apparent.

In part because of challenges faced by dense urban areas, cities have also become the incubator of new ideas. While congress has done little to address poverty, cities have passed innovative policies like living wage laws, community benefits agreements, and superstore ordinances. Cities have also been home to major union organizing campaigns, resulting in improved wages and working conditions for tens of thousands of workers. Cities have worked to preserve and create affordable housing through the passage of inclusionary zoning laws and the creation of housing trust funds. And cities have undertaken important environmental initiatives, from agreeing to meet Kyoto protocol targets to launching recycling programs to preserving open space.

I am proud of the role that LAANE has played in this burgeoning movement. We are now helping to nurture organizations in 17 cities, from Denver to Atlanta to Boston through our participation in the Partnership for Working Families. In Los Angeles, we work hard every day to build links between labor, environmental, community and religious leaders and to support creative policy solutions to our most pressing problems.

Organizing and policy victories in Los Angeles and beyond have a very real impact on the lives of tens of thousands of families. They also present an alternative vision of an economy in which the benefits of economic growth are broadly shared.

When we negotiate a Community Benefits Agreement that includes affordable housing, job training and living wage jobs, we demonstrate that we can have growth and justice at the same time. When security officers earn rights on the job, they point the way to making service jobs good jobs.

Of course, we have much further to go. But step by step and city by city, we are creating a movement to remake our economy.