Anthony Foxx has worn many hats in his decadeslong career in politics and law. Raised by a single mother in a low-income family in Charlotte, North Carolina, he described his neighborhood being “blocked by a freeway,” making it difficult for residents to travel across town.
Foxx graduated from NYU School of Law in 1996, after which he worked for several private law firms, as well as for the Department of Justice and House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. He served as the mayor of Charlotte between 2009 and 2013 and became the youngest Cabinet secretary serving in the U.S. Department of Transportation from 2013 to 2017 under the Obama administration.
After working across multiple sectors in transportation, Foxx is now a professor and the director of the Harvard University Center for Public Leadership. In an interview with WSN, Foxx spoke about how his upbringing in Charlotte led to his decadeslong career in public service.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
WSN: What drew you into public transportation?
Foxx: I studied the subject of real estate development and how transportation is a byproduct of that. The more I learned about the subject matter, the more I grew to believe that our transportation system in this country is a cultural statement. That system has been used to reinforce societal ideas of who belongs and who doesn’t, and I made it my business when I became the transportation secretary — to not only raise the issue of how our infrastructure has been built to reinforce these lines between Americans, but to develop policies that bring those lines down and to create more connectivity between our people.
Foxx served eight years, elected in 2009 and 2011, and was the youngest mayor of Charlotte at 38 years old. His successes include the management of the economy after the 2008 financial crisis, infrastructure development and notably adding a third runway to the Charlotte Douglas International Airport.
WSN: What led you to become the mayor of Charlotte?
Foxx: I shifted from law practice to public service in a series of small steps. Step one was deciding to run for Charlotte City Council in 2005. No one in their right mind would have done that, because I took a substantial pay cut to go part time at my law firm. I felt called to public service as a native of Charlotte to try to make that city as good as it possibly could be. I had no expectation at that time of becoming mayor, certainly not U.S. Transportation Secretary. I was more or less following my own inclination to serve in a role that is not often celebrated in the national media.
During Foxx’s tenure as the secretary of the Department of Transportation, he spearheaded the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act in 2015, where the National Surface Transportation and Innovative Finance Bureau were established as the “one-stop shop” for state and local governments to receive stable federal funding to revamp surface transportation — the first policy of its kind in the country in over a decade at the time.
He also created the Smart City Challenge, a competition that awarded $40 million in federal funding to a city that could generate innovative transportation technology such as driverless cars, supporting the development of electric vehicle charging stations and driverless shuttle buses in Columbus, Ohio, the final winner.
WSN: Tell me more about the impact of the Smart City Challenge.
Foxx: The real benefit of the Smart City Challenge was we got more than 70 cities across the country to reimagine their transportation systems and to build plans, many of which were executed without federal money.
We established equity as one of the factors that would be considered in evaluating projects and the proposals we received. Another way would have been updating Title VI guidance — Title VI under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides that the government or entities that receive federal funding cannot discriminate on the basis of race or gender. Our department had not updated its guidance on how that statute would be interpreted in more than 40 years.
We made it as rigorous as we possibly could so that any recipient of federal transportation funds had to mind their Ps and Qs on these issues of how money was used. That’s everything from contracting to actual projects that got put in the ground.
At Harvard University, Foxx has taught Policy Design and Delivery to graduate students since 2023. He also became the co-director of the university’s Center for Public Leadership in 2024 and launched the Culture and Politics Lab that encourages students to bridge political divisions through cultural discourse.
WSN: What advice would you give to young people who are considering serving in public service?
Foxx: First, prepare now — that means doing your work in school and trying to do the best you can at all times at whatever task you’re doing. Second, find people around you who think differently than you do. The fundamental aspect of democratic thinking is that somehow in the mishmash of different ideas, we come to the best conclusion we can for an entire society. So practicing that in your daily life is very important.
Third, if you’re interested in elected service, I’d warn that it’s never comfortable to jump into it. I’ve known people who were always interested in it and decided they wanted to forge an income that would support them doing public service and they never went back into it. You have to decide to do it and then recognize that risk. Many people don’t succeed, but the lucky ones that do — and if your heart’s in the right place — will have a great chance to serve.
Contact Kaitlyn Sze Tu at [email protected].