The National League of Cities (NLC) would like to help your city celebrate the annual Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Awareness Day on January 31. City leaders can take advantage of this opportunity to ensure their qualified residents receive the highest tax credits possible with NLC’s updated EITC in Cities toolkit. With these sample social

Members of the House and Senate, led by Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Representative Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) have introduced the “Protecting Community Television Act (S. 3218/H.R. 5659),” which is intended to preserve local cable franchises by clarifying the statutory definition of a franchise fee. This bill was introduced with the endorsement of the National League

In 2015, 19 percent of 350 municipal leaders surveyed by the National League of Cities said that they used their bully pulpit to promote summer learning with 11 percent stating that they made policy changes in support of summer leaning. Since then, many municipal leaders have embraced summer learning as a strategy to solve some

Earlier this month, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) unveiled proposed changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to modernize and clarify the regulations to facilitate more efficient, effective and timely NEPA reviews by federal agencies. With the proposed changes, CEQ aims to reduce paperwork and project delays. NEPA was signed into

A growing number of cities understand the value that afterschool programs bring to children, youth, and their families, and in turn to the city. Many cities have built coordinated citywide afterschool systems to increase access and participation of target populations and to set a standard of quality for all programs.  A city or network of

With the 2020 election just around the corner, it is more important than ever to ensure cities, towns, and villages have a place at the table. In a time of deepening partisanship, for local voices to be heard and community issues to be amplified, NLC is proud to announce the latest resource of our Leading

Summer in the City – that’s the name we’ve given to the robust summer camp program operated by the City of Gaithersburg, Maryland. Nestled within the vibrant hub of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region, Gaithersburg is an ethnically and culturally diverse community of just over 70,000 people. We know that over the summer, many students

At City Summit 2018, 50 cities committed to new initiatives to support their innovation economies. NLC’s City Innovation Ecosystems program collects and tracks these commitments in order to showcase successes, identify best practices and connect peer cities who can learn together. Here we share the story of one city’s work: A new kind of recreation

The last federal transportation bill, the Fixing Americas Surface Transportation (FAST) Act of 2016, will expire in September of 2020. It brought cities year over year increases in federal transportation block grant funding, and now, a brand new transportation bill must be stitched together by Congress. Cities need this new legislation to set the course

From major national elections and the Census, to controversies around whether we’ve actually even started a new decade (NPR seems to think we have another year until we start the “roaring twenties”), 2020 promises to be an exciting year. Here at NLC, we’ve been feeling the pulse on the ground in cities, towns and villages