My own family is with us, and it is a special delight for me. Angela, I thank you for all you do for me and for this great city.
Tonight, I will speak foremost about people. It is a topic that would seem obvious -- if not for its absence from so many conversations in government today. I want to talk about people because our efforts at building community -- above all else -- are the reason that Boston ranks above perhaps every city in America.
We need collaboration now more than ever, because as Boston continues moving forward, harmful divisions have sprung up around us.
There are political divisions across our country. We see evidence of this in some Washington politicians who have made threats of government shutdowns so routine they are no longer newsworthy. Politicians shouldn’t pat themselves on the back for fixing self-made problems while the real challenges -- like putting people back to work -- go unaddressed.
There are also economic divisions. The Occupy movement gave voice to inequality that threatens our economy. I don’t begrudge anyone for being successful, but true progress should be shared widely.
So, why has Boston thrived -- despite these divisions around us? We’ve refused to allow strained budgets to result in strained relationships. While others have been building walls, we have been building connections:
We brought together developers and community partners to break ground on 22 projects last year and put thousands of people back to work. And Boston’s unemployment rate has dropped almost two full points in the last year.
To lower municipal healthcare costs, we did not move forward by ourselves. We drew on established relationships with Jen Springer from AFSCME and many other union leaders. Please join me in recognizing them. Together, we forged a groundbreaking agreement that will slow the growth of runaway healthcare costs by more than $70 million.
