Mayor John F. Street´s first term as Mayor has been highlighted by an unprecedented focus on the city's neighborhoods.

His Neighborhood Transformation Initiative (NTI), a $1.6 billion strategy to rebuild the city's neighborhoods, aims to remove blight and attract private development. In May of 2002, Mayor Street launched a public safety component to the NTI program, Operation Safe Streets, which is successfully driving illegal drug sales from the city's neighborhoods.