As the chief executive of Los Angeles – the most diverse city in the world and home to the third-largest metropolitan economy on the planet – Mayor Eric Garcetti addressed why Los Angeles is engaging with counterparts beyond the city's borders, how his administration is using international partnerships to advance local priorities, and where cities can and should lead on the great global challenges of our time.
In an era when core issues transcend municipal and national boundaries — from climate change to security to innovation to economic anxiety, inequality, and opportunity — cities have a vested interest in addressing them, drawing from the best expertise available worldwide, and exchanging the most effective ideas, policies, and practices with counterparts on distant shores. Cities have earned an essential role on the global stage, and Mayor Garcetti laid out his vision for how they can play it.
(Mayor Garcetti's talk and Q/A will be moderated by Victor Mallet of the Financial Times)
Media Coverage:
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3 Aug 2018 – China News Service:
LA mayor offers support for new Greater Bay Area -
2 Aug 2018 – China Daily:
LA mayor expresses support for Greater Bay Area -
1 Aug 2018 – South China Morning Post:
China’s Greater Bay Area leaders must collaborate and not be ‘too arrogant’ with each other, says Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti
Eric Garcetti is the 42nd Mayor of Los Angeles and a fourth-generation Angeleno. He was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley — the son of public servants and the grandson and great-grandson of immigrants from Mexico and Eastern Europe.
As the chief executive of the world’s third-largest metropolitan economy, Mayor Garcetti oversees the busiest container port in the western hemisphere and the fifth busiest airport in the world. He has led L.A. to raise its minimum wage, lower its business tax, enact America’s strongest earthquake retrofit law, and pass the boldest local infrastructure initiative in U.S. history, funding a once-in-ageneration expansion of public transportation. And he successfully led the bid to bring the 2028 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games to the United States for the first time in more than 30 years.
He has lived and worked in Europe, Asia, and Africa and appointed Los Angeles' first Deputy Mayor for International Affairs to expand L.A.'s global ties and bring more jobs, economic opportunity, culture, education, and visitors to the city.
Mayor Garcetti’s government service began on the L.A. City Council, where he spent four terms as Council President before being elected Mayor in 2013 and winning re-election in 2017 by the widest margin in the history of Los Angeles. He has served his country as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve, and taught at the University of Southern California and Occidental College.
Mayor Garcetti received his B.A. and M.A. from Columbia University, and studied as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, and later at the London School of Economics. He is also a jazz pianist and photographer.
He and his wife, First Lady Amy Elaine Wakeland, are the proud parents of a daughter, Maya, and have been foster parents for more than a decade.
Victor Mallet is a journalist, commentator and author with three decades of experience in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He is currently Asia news editor for the Financial Times (https://www.ft.com/victor-mallet), and was bureau chief in South Asia, based in New Delhi, for the four years from 2012-2016.
