Cities are essential to our nation's well-being. And now, more than ever, as our nation heads toward a period of economic downturn, we must ensure that urban issues are not simply a domestic-policy issue for the candidates to debate, but the domestic-policy issue that frames solutions to our economic woes. After all, according to the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program, the United States' 100 largest metro areas contain 65 percent of the nation's population and generate 75 percent of its Gross Domestic Product. The six largest metro areas in Pennsylvania, with 68 percent of the state's population, generate 80 percent of its economic output.

Cities are too important to ignore.

To date, however, we are disappointed by the discourse. Too much energy has been wasted viewing the election as a political football game, focusing on the internal politics of campaigns instead of on the issues.

MayorTV, a project initiated by the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy and the Nation, has interviewed mayors all across the country on their thoughts about a federal urban agenda. All – from Minneapolis to Atlanta to Buffalo to Los Angeles – shared a desire to hear a substantive conversation about the role that cities play in our country today and about the role that they surely will play in the future. This must be changed, and political support for cities – which has of late been absent in Washington, D.C. – must be conveyed by all who want to lead our nation.

Pennsylvania's job-performance ranking has improved recently, but remained 35th in 2006 and 2007 among all states, while average hourly wages declined 1 percent in the state over the last five years, according to a Brookings analysis. The presidential candidates must debate vigorously how they would tackle such entrenched economic problems with innovative solutions that recognize cities as hubs of activity and growth.

They must debate how they would use regional transit to encourage economic relationships among urban areas and their surrounding suburbs. They must discuss how they will encourage investment in high-tech industries to move places like Scranton and Reading beyond their manufacturing pasts. Pennsylvania has had particular success with this strategy, becoming the seventh-largest "cyberstate" in the country, according to a report released by a tech trade group this month. The presidential candidates must even address how they will direct federal money to the bridge repairs, sewage-system overhauls, and water-treatment renovations that not only improve quality of life, but also represent public investment of taxpayers' dollars in projects that distribute substantial benefits across large numbers of Americans.

We've got to go beyond the political safe zones when it comes to talking about cities – poverty and crime alleviation, though both are critically important – to address idiosyncratic problems of infrastructure, economic revitalization, and sustainable development. A real federal urban policy would not only provide funding for city programs such as COPS that keep police officers on the street, but also would articulate a vision of economic prosperity for our country.

Both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama have outlined plans to deal with urban issues. Sen. McCain has been silent on the issue as far as we can tell. But bullet-point documents deep in a campaign Web site aren't enough if we really want to put cities on the agenda.

Though mayors – and all of our fellow city dwellers – are fractured and decentralized voices from places as different as San Francisco and Sandusky, we have a common interest in ensuring that cities of all sizes and types are once again recognized as hubs of social and economic vitality. Cities truly are beacons, whether or not they are on a hill.

Let's start talking.