John Barros, until recently Boston’s top economic development official, has entered the increasingly crowded field of candidates vying to replace Mayor Marty Walsh.

Walsh is expected to be confirmed as President Joe Biden’s secretary of labor in the coming days or weeks.

Barros, who held his post for seven years, launched his campaign at a restaurant he and his family own in Dorchester. The race will be the 47-year-old’s second try for the mayoralty. He finished sixth in a similarly crowded field in the 2013 election that vaulted Walsh to the fifth floor of City Hall.

Barros the son of immigrants from Cabo Verde, touted his past as a community organizer and eventually the 13-year executive director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative. The nonprofit helped transform Roxbury and part of Dorchester, building affordable housing and community amenities like playgrounds in an area that had been devastated by arson and disinvestment in the years following World War Two.

He promised a campaign that would focus on racial equity, affordable housing construction and fixing Boston’s troubled public school system. Reporters at his live-streamed announcement event pressed him on his role in Boston’s seeming inability under his and Walsh’s watch to increase the share of city contracts that went to minority- and women-owned businesses. Barros countered that changing the situation required significant changes and could only follow the completion of a long-in-the-works study of the problem that was released recently.

“Twenty-five percent. A quarter. Seven hundred or so million dollars will be going to women- and minority-owned businesses. I want to get back in there to meet those goals,” Barros said, citing a range of reforms identified in the study.

Barros was also asked whether he supported rent control.

“We need to continue to make sure that we can provide affordable housing. That we can continue to produce affordable housing,” he said in response, promising “conversation” on the topic. “We’re going to look at all measures.”

Barros’ campaign website lists a number of promises for dealing with the housing issue, from increasing housing production to keep up with demand and stabilize rents, to expanding tenants’ knowledge of their rights, to dedicating more city resources for affordable housing and public housing construction. Those measures would include continuing Walsh’s push to turn city-owned parcels and buildings into more housing and expand the administration’s homebuying assistance programs.

Barros’ site also promised more bus lanes and improvements to the cycling and pedestrian environment across the city.

Barros joins a crowded field of four other declared candidates, all people of color: City Councilors Michelle Wu, Andrea Campbell and Anissa Essaibi-George and state Rep. Jon Santiago.