Mayors for Peace Reaches 5000 Members in 151 Countries and
Regions

Mayors for Peace Reaches 5000 Members in 151 Countries and
Regions; with 188 U.S. Cities, the World's Largest Network
of Local Governments

For immediate release: September 22, 2011

Contact: Jackie Cabasso, Mayors for Peace North American
Coordinator (510) 306-0119

Mayors for Peace is proud to announce that its membership
has surpassed the 5000 mark, making Mayors for Peace not
only the fastest growing association of local governments in
the world, but also, by far the largest international,
direct-membership association of local governments.

Cities are increasingly becoming a force for peace in the
world, no more so than on the issue of abolishing nuclear
weapons, as evidenced by the extraordinary growth of Mayors
for Peace. Hiroshima and Nagasaki founded the organization
in 1982.  Their experiences in 1945 of the destructive power
of nuclear weapons lent great force to their opposition to
nuclear arms.  From 1982 to 2003, 550 cities expressed their
solidarity by joining Mayors for Peace.  Since 2003,
thousands of cities have been inspired to join Mayors for
Peace in support of its `2020 Vision' of a world free of
nuclear weapon by the year 2020. The total number of
citizens represented worldwide by Mayors for Peace is
approaching one billion.

Mayors for Peace membership includes well over half of the
capital cities and largest cities of the world.  U.S.
membership has reached 188 cities including Los Angeles, San
Francisco, Oakland, Boulder, Denver, Des Moines, Akron,
Chicago, Wilmington, Orlando, Atlanta, Honolulu, Boston,
Baltimore, Detroit, Santa Fe, Salt Lake City, Albany,
Buffalo, Houston, Seattle, Spokane, Madison and Milwaukee.

At its annual meeting in June 2011, the U.S. Conference of
Mayors, the nonpartisan national association of mayors of
cities with populations of 30,000 or more, unanimously
adopted a resolution "cal[ling] on President Obama to work
with the leaders of the other nuclear weapon states to
implement the U.N. Secretary-General's Five Point Proposal
for Nuclear Disarmament forthwith, so that a Nuclear Weapons
Convention, or a related set of mutually reinforcing legal
instruments, can be agreed upon and implemented by the year
2020, as urged by Mayors for Peace." The resolution also
"calls on the U.S. Congress to terminate funding for
modernization of the nuclear weapons complex and nuclear
weapons systems, to reduce spending on nuclear weapons
programs well below Cold War levels, and to redirect funds
to meet the urgent needs of cities."

In the coming months and years, Mayors for Peace will be
tackling the challenge of conveying to its citizens and
national leaders the extreme urgency of eliminating the
nuclear threat. Thousands of nuclear warheads are ready to
be used literally within minutes.  No matter how
professionally these forces are commanded, exposing humanity
to such profound danger is inherently irresponsible, indeed
reckless endangerment.  Mayors for Peace believes that we
must work urgently and unrelentingly to commence, pursue,
and conclude negotiations to establish a nuclear-weapon-free
world by 2020.

Complete list of member cities and more:
www.mayorsforpeace.org and www.2020visioncampaign.org

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