Exclusive: Mayor Bibb is Connecting Climate and Community Health in Cleveland

In this exclusive episode, recorded live at the African American Mayors Association 11th Annual Conference, host Stephen Goldsmith sits down with Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb to explore how cities can address environmental justice and improve community health outcomes. Mayor Bibb shares his unexpected journey into climate leadership, connecting the dots between air quality, equity, and opportunity for children in Cleveland's most vulnerable neighborhoods. Through data-driven action and a focus on lived experience, Mayor Bibb offers a roadmap for mayors everywhere on making local government a catalyst for cleaner, healthier, and more equitable cities.

Listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts. The following is a transcript of their conversation.

Stephen Goldsmith:

I'm with the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard, and we have this terrific partnership with AAMA in order to advance how mayors can intervene to help the health of folks in communities that traditionally haven't had the opportunity to succeed because of various environmental conditions. So we're trying to make the case that there are pollutants about which a city can do something, that will improve the health of kids and therefore their opportunities in life. We got into this Mayor – just, I promise not to speak much, but I've been a politician for 30 years [laughter]. So we run a program at Harvard for Chiefs of Staff of cities, and one of those sessions, the Public Health School, the Chan School of Public Health, came in and made a presentation and showed the folks who were present that as the classrooms got warmer, the test scores went down. As the air got worse, chronic asthma went up, and absenteeism got worse. So it was really dramatic about the long-term harm, particularly to children, but also older folks in these communities. So Mayor, there's a lot going on now, right? Cities are kind of under attack and lots of issues with respect to opportunity. So in Cleveland, you've been a leader in terms of climate. How do you make the case? How do you make the narrative to your residents about why they should care? 

Mayor Justin Bibb:

Well, first of all, thank you for having me, I’m really looking forward to this conversation. I never knew that I would be a climate mayor. When I took office, when I campaigned for mayor nearly four years ago, I ran on safety, I ran on modernizing city hall and I ran on putting Cleveland back on the national map in a more positive way. But as I was knocking on doors, I remember being in the southeast side of Cleveland and I came across a mom and she was complaining that the air quality in her neighborhood was so poor, which led to her son having asthma. In that same week, I had a presentation from a local nonprofit and they looked at all the data in terms of air quality in the city, and the biggest driver of air quality in Cleveland was the tree canopy. So, in the predominantly Black part of Cleveland, there was not a robust tree canopy, but in the West Side, the predominantly White part of Cleveland, there was a robust tree canopy.

And that's when the dots got connected for me, that addressing climate and addressing environmental justice is all a part of what we need to be focused on as Mayors; it affects educational outcomes, it affects public safety, it affects economic opportunity. And so since taking office in 2022, our entire administration has been really thinking about how do we not only have a data-driven approach, but how do we ground these conversations around environmental justice and climate change in the everyday lived experiences of people, right? I'm not talking about greenhouse gas emissions, I'm talking about asthma, I'm talking about jobs, I'm talking about reducing energy costs. And as Mayors, I think we are the best messengers to talk about these issues given our local context.

Stephen Goldsmith:

Thanks. One more question on this particular subject, we had a recent meeting with Strive Together, Purpose Built Communities, and Harlem Children's Zone on the role of Mayors with respect to place and education. So as you think about equity, social determinants of health, how do you identify the areas that you're going to pay particular attention to?

Mayor Justin Bibb:

Well, it's all interconnected. We actually just signed an executive order several weeks ago, the same day when the President announced he was going to eliminate the Department of Education. Our administration signed an executive order creating the first ever Children's Cabinet at City Hall. And this cabinet is really focused on making sure that every single department inside city government is focused on improving the material conditions of children in our city. So from Public Works to Public Health to Parks and Recreation to Public Safety, et cetera. So now we have all of our cabinet really looking at what are the key outcomes and metrics at the department level that we need to focus on to improve the conditions for young people? I'll give you a couple of examples. When I was growing up in Cleveland, what made opportunity possible for me? Well, a couple things. One, I had a really good rec center to go to that was safe and well programmed.

I had high quality out-of-school time programs to go to at my church and the Boys and Girls Club. When I was growing up in the 1990s in the Southeast Side of Cleveland. We still had neighbors be good neighbors. So if my mom was working the night shift, or grandma was at Bible study and the street lights came on, somebody made sure I was in the house or was at my neighbor's house. I got a hot plate, I got a hot meal, and mom picked me up after she got off. We have to get back to that in our cities. And I think government, especially local government as Mayors, we play a major role in addressing those conditions. And so we've done a couple of things to really address some of this stuff. Locally in Cleveland, one, we commissioned the first ever Parks and Rec Center Master Plan in our city.

We've had a declining population over the last several decades, but we haven't kept up with right sizing our Parks and Rec Center footprints. We want to reorient that footprint. We are being aggressive in addressing our lead paint crisis in our homes. Many of our babies are still being poisoned by lead paint from the windows and doors and walls and homes that were built before 1978 –

Stephen Goldsmith:

And lead pipes… 

Mayo Justin Bibb:

And lead pipes in our daycare centers as well. And so everywhere we see government playing a role to help young people, we are trying to have a laser focus on driving real accountability and real results.

Stephen Goldsmith:

So just two more quick questions. One, give us an example of how you're using data to focus your intervention and what is CLEANinCLE anyway?

Mayor Justin Bibb:

So one good example, I'm a big believer in making data plain for folks and giving our residents agency to be a part of the solution. And so, with our Public Health Department, we got a grant to install air quality sensors and monitors in the Buckeye neighborhood in Cleveland. And we're training residents and training youth on how to test the air quality so that information can be shared in local rec centers and local parks and our libraries. And it's giving people a tangible way to address some of these issues block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood.

Stephen Goldsmith:

Last question then Stacie's going to take over. If you were talking to a broad audience, right, not just folks in one of the communities you've been talking about, and you had 30 seconds to tell your community generally why they should care about this issue, what would you say?

Mayor Justin Bibb:

Clean air, clean water and safe streets are the surest way to build prosperity in the country. And we're doing it city by city.

Stephen Goldsmith:

That was great. You should be elected mayor! [laughter] Alright. Thank you very much.