I heard it. Senator Barack Obama had a nice mention of cities in his speech tonight in Houston, after another big win in Wisconsin.

The New York Times complained in an editorial this morning that presidential candidates aren't talking about "the nation's struggling cities." "The cities," they write, "have been the hardest hit as federal policies have failed or gone missing in education, housing, health care, jobs, transportation and environmental, to name a few."

Certainly, this Administration has not been friendly to cities, and there is no excuse for that, given that most Americans now live in cities and the metro areas they anchor. And certainly, in this campaign season, we've not heard many mentions of cities as an issue.

But isn't the economy an urban issue? Aren't good jobs an urban issue? What about a new energy policy? Isn't that an urban issue? Isn't health care an urban issue? Isn't minimum wage an urban issue? Aren't early childhood education and schools urban issues?

Maybe it's time for urban leaders to change the frame and change the way they talk about cities. Maybe it's time that we offer up cities as solutions to the problems voters identify with rather than as the problem (that, frankly, voters don't identify with)?

I've had the opportunity to be in direct and routine contact over the past five weeks with voters who have questions and advice on issues and strategies in these campaigns. In hundreds of calls from voters, not one -- not one -- has asked about cities.

For someone like me who is in the business of selling cities, I could take this as a real disappointment. Or I can take it as an opportunity to reframe the way we talk about cities to make them more relevant to voters.

Kudos to Senator Obama for mentioning cities in his speech tonight. And props to NYT for its advocacy.

But listening to a very wide mix of voters, I'm convinced we will have to find new and fresh ways to talk about cities and how we ought to be investing in them as a nation if we want to be effective in pressing our points.

More on this later....

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