An open letter to the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates:

When will you finally start talking about the issues that matter specifically to cities and metro areas that are home territory to 80 percent of America's people?

Sure, from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Key West, Fla., most Americans care about the national issues — Iraq, taxes and health care, who'll have the steeliest eye confronting foreign adversaries or handling the newest hot-button topic, immigration.

But even the issues that look national can prove to be very urban and local.

Our economy mostly functions thanks to 361 metropolitan regions responsible for more than 85 percent of U.S. jobs, income and output.

Or take immigrants. Overwhelmingly, they're landing in metro America. Beyond sending in federal agents for spot arrests of undocumented immigrants, what's Washington doing to help localities cope with a tidal wave of skill-short, English-deficient new arrivals? Or finding more affordable housing opportunities for long-term Americans, too — or dealing with today's mortgage foreclosure crisis? Do you have any new ideas?

Climate's a mega-issue, finally getting a smidgen of White House interest. But real cuts in greenhouse gas emissions will have to be focused at the metropolitan level where most energy is burned. More than 500 city leaders have signed the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement initiated by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels.

But individual cities' climate efforts won't make much difference if neighboring jurisdictions just shrug their shoulders. Please, candidates, tell us how federal carrots and sticks could get all our localities working together for greenhouse gas reductions that really matter.

Or how would you propose to reshape federal narcotics policy after 30 years of a disastrously ineffective "war on drugs" that's propelled us into the biggest prison population of any nation on the planet? We've spent billions to run penitentiary systems, yet fearfully dangerous drug markets still plague many inner-city neighborhoods.

Traffic congestion is becoming completely intolerable in many metro regions. There's scarcely any space for new roads, and everyone recoils from new gas taxes. Federal transportation policy is in a shambles, even while foreign oil dependence imperils our national security.

There was a ray of sunshine on this issue in the last New Hampshire debate, as Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico insisted on the need for "a transportation policy that doesn't just build more highways. We have to have commuter rail, light rail, open spaces. We got to have land use policies where we improve people's quality of life." Sadly, the rest of you failed to respond.

And what about infrastructure? Falling-down bridges, deteriorating highways, aging dams, failing water systems in the face of rising pockets of severe drought — and you would-be chief executives hardly mention the topic? Let's get real! How do we rebuild a greener, safer, more economically competitive America, focused on the metros where most of us live? Where's the new federal-state-local partnership to make it happen?

Maybe you all need to read the America 2050 platform of the Regional Plan Association and its allies, with its specific formulas of where we need to go to rebuild infrastructure, develop new energy sources, reduce our carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050, build "mega-region" rapid rail systems up to world standards, and more (www.america2050.org).

You keep talking about hope, candidates. Let's make it a bit more real!

Or if you need inspiration, try going to the Web site of MayorTV, a project of The Nation magazine and the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, which has an array of mayors making video pitches for an array of federal initiatives and partnerships (www.mayortv.com).

Focus on jobs, crime, housing, infrastructure, education and the environment, Mayor Manny Diaz of Miami counsels on that site — and don't succumb, he insists, to media and pollster interest in the emotional issues of the war, abortion and gay rights. Los Angeles' Antonio Villaraigosa notes that even on homeland security, the Bush administration's signature issue, cities have been left high and dry.

"Down here where the rubber meets the road, we're fixing potholes, we're making cities safer, we're solving problems around health care," says Denver's John Hickenlooper. "We can figure out the solutions. We're America's laboratories." But cities, he adds, need Washington's help to "roll out" the new solutions "to the whole community and the whole country."

OK, presidential hopefuls, listen up to what these grass-roots leaders are telling you. Maybe you could excuse detouring key city and suburban issues in rural Iowa and small-town New Hampshire.

But primaries in strongly urban states will come on quickly, including Nevada on Jan. 19, Florida on Jan. 29, and then on Feb. 5 the Super Tuesday constellation including California, New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Georgia, New Jersey, Illinois, Missouri and a dozen other states.

This is an overwhelmingly metropolitan, urban nation. Please, candidates, respond to it — and for it.