The conversation has taken an interesting turn with the question "who were some of the mayors who understood urban economic development and fought the battle for cities?"
Henry Maier, mayor of Milwaukee for 28 years, was the first mentioned. According to Mr. Ronald C. Kysiak, who worked for Maier, the mayor opened an economic development office and forged alliances with other big cities in Wisconsin and rural counties by explaining to them that they all were facing the same challenge - losing jobs to the suburbs. How interesting could that be? The next mayor of Philadelphia linking up, not only with the surrounding suburbs, but with Clearfield, Dauphin, Forest and other primarily rural counties in Pennsylvania.
Mayor Bill Schaefer of Baltimore was also mentioned for the work he did for that city. Others mentioned include George Voinovich for his time as a Republican mayor of Cleveland during the Reagan administration.
(edited to add) Mr. James C. Hankla from Long Beach, California, made the important point that successful "economic development mayors surround themselves with prominent economic development professionals." The mayor can't do all of the work himself and for the most part needs to use the bully pulpit to push for changes. The takeaway of this statement for Philadelphia is that it will be important to watch the next mayor during the transition period to see if he surrounds himself with these "prominent economic development professionals."
(edited to add II) Mr. Finkle from IECD has asked for more names of mayors who have walked the economic development walk, to which the following mayors were put out there:
Shirley Franklin from Atlanta
Francis Slay from St. Louis
Ed Rendell
Rudy Giuliani
Tony Williams, who will be featured in a future Next Mayor video, and Adrian Fenty from Washington D.C.
Richard Daley in Chicago
Check out the links for more info about these folks.