According to the Wall Street Journal, ExpressJet Holdings is expected to announce this week the formation of a new carrier operating under their name that will focus on flying nonstop between small and medium-sized cities. "ExpressJet is pursuing a Goldilocks strategy -- it wants markets that are not too… more

Praise keeps flowing in about Seattle's new Olympic Sculpture Park. The Wall Street Journal published a long and glowing description of the city's initiative which highlights its transformative impact: "On the unlikeliest of sites -- two small industrial lots and a parking lot separated by a busy street and… more

If you missed Robert Sullivan's NYT op-ed piece, you have to read it. He bemoans New Yorkers' increasing propensity to drive and charges that the city is losing its edge as a pedestrian mecca.

Maybe it's because I didn't get to go to camp as a kid, but the idea of attending Transit Camp holds special appeal to me. It's billed as an ad hoc gathering of designers, transit geeks, bloggers, visual artists, tech geeks and cultural creators passionate about transit in Toronto and… more

One hot topic at Davos, according to the Wall Street Journal, is the effects of globalization. "Globalization isn't working for everyone" with "stagnating wages and rising job insecurity in developed countries creating popular disenchantment with the free movement of goods, capital and people across borders.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she… more

Sara Horowitz intends to create the "new unionism" adapted to a our mobile society where jobs come and jobs go with her creation, Freelancers Union. Having signed up 40,000 freelancers from the New York area, Horowitz is now going nationwide in an attempt to provide low cost health care and… more

@Properties, a Chicago real estate brokerage, has turned its real estate office into a branded neighborhood coffee bar. It's called @Spot. When coffee customers fire up their laptops, the first web page they see is the @Properties home page. The idea is to use the no-pressure setting -- perfect for… more

Today's NYT features young foodies in Manhattan -- kids who are learning to cook and consume sophisticated meals. They are the offspring of "a growing wave of parents obsessed with all things culinary who are indoctrinating their children to the ways of gastronomy."

"Japanese restaurants lke Blue Ribbon Sushi in… more

Do aging boomers really want to live in age-restricted communities? Or do they benefit from having children nearby?

Home builder Perry Bigelow told ChicagoTribune real estate columnist Mary Umberger that sustainable communities must be able to regenerate themselves, and that means have people of all ages. "In our communities," he told… more

Vicki Breen is on the faculty of NYU law school and runs the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy there. This is a resource that all urban leaders should know about.

During a Smart City interview, Vicki told me that a yet-to-be-released study on New York's community gardens… more

It seems the sidewalks of center city Philadelphia are becoming increasingly crowded with strollers as more and more families are chosing to raise their kids in the urban core.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports a surge in the number of families with kids moving downtown.

"They are part - a surprising part… more

In response to the oft-quoted study that came out in December called “Social Interaction and Urban Sprawl,” which reported that the suburbs are friendlier places to live than cities, Robert Steuteville penned this well thought out response. In it, he points out that "the original claim — widely reported… more

Continuing his call for support for major green initiatives by the White House, Thomas Friedman is now calling for a Green New Deal. Where once he believed we needed the equivalent of a Manhattan Project, he now believes "there is no magic bullet for reducing our dependence on oil… more

NYT carried a story Friday on the push back citizens in Santa Cruz, CA, are giving the expanding University of California campus there. Citizens have formed the Coalition for Limiting University Expansion to oppose plans to turn the "relatively small undergraduate university into an internationally known institution, with new… more

A panel of national higher education and business leaders issued a roadmap for reforming higher education, arguing that college graduates must be able to do more than equip themselves for their first job. Rather, it says in a report, "In an economy fueled by innovation, the capabilities developed through a… more

I shared the podium yesterday in Oklahoma City with its Mayor Mick Cornett who was giving his State of the City address.

Among the things he said that resonated for me was this:

"I believe that elected leaders should monitor and judge their effectiveness by the pronouns their citizens use.… more

When asked about key ingredients of successful cities, urban leaders nationwide gave some of the expected answers, including good schools and a good economy. But the top ranked ingredient was a surprise. It was "vibrancy."

But what makes a city vibrant?

The Maricopa Partnership for Arts and Culture (Phoenix) has asked… more

Fast Company (February) has fabulous photos of the very slick Los Angeles Metro system.

The re-design, which began in 2002, has resulted in much improved numbers in awareness of transit service and, even better, service improvements (even though service hasn't really changed). It is, as Fast Company puts it, the "proof… more

While in Mumbai over the New Year, I read a very good newspaper daily, The Hindustan Times. The paper was running a series on its editorial page, "My VIsion for Mumbai." The columns, bylined by invited residents of the city, were intended as a series of ideas on transforming… more

Virtual town squares are popping up across cyberspace, says the New York Times: throughout the nation, "citizen bloggers and deep-pocketed entrepreneurs are creating town-specific, and even neighborhood-specific, Web sites where the public can read and contribute items too small or too fleeting for weekly newspapers." The AmericanTowns service… more

Last week, New York City officials unveiled ambitious plans for new playgrounds "outfitted with ponds, pulleys and bulky foam blocks intended to engage the imagination, and 'play workers' to help guide fantasy play." The New York Times claims that, "The experiment, if it inspires other cities, would mark the… more

If the story and photos of Seattle's New Sculpture Park in yesterday's New York Times left you wanting more, find it here in the The Seattle Times.

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels told the Times, "I think it will give people a sense of what we can accomplish on the… more

Benefiting from an increased local interest in the arts and an accompanying explosion in local wealth, Seattle is soon opening the Olympic Sculpture Park, "a lush panoramic space for public art designed by Weiss/Manfredi Architects that connects downtown Seattle to the water’s edge in a series of shifting, subtly choreographed… more

For all Boomers, Liverpool occupies a special place in our imaginations. But the city always had its rough edges and had fallen onto very hard times. But being named the European Capital of Culture has given Liverpool new life.

Here's an update from Stephen Bayley, writing for The Guardian.

"Never before… more

City-dwellers, apparently. The New York Times reports that, "More than half the drivers who crowd into Manhattan each workday come from the five boroughs. That is only one fact about traffic in New York City that may surprise some people. For example, 35 percent of government workers drive to… more

A pilot project in Chicago called the Community Energy Cooperative is helping residents save on their electric bills. The scheme, which takes advantage of the fact that kilowatt hour costs vary widely throughout the day depending on demand, is yet further evidence of the power of information: by knowing… more

San Francisco is poised to become the first major city in the country to offer free universal wireless internet access thanks to an initiative by Mayor Gavin Newsom. Free wireless was first proposed by the mayor as the first step in a larger initiative to create a comprehensive digital inclusion… more

As the holiday season winds down, consider unconsuming your unwanted goods, new and old. In his weekly "Consumed" column for the New York Times Magazine, Rob walker claims that finding a home for things you don't want can be as pleasurable as is getting new things that you do.… more

Across the globe, longevity has been linked to a number of different factors, but the New York Times reports that only one has been found to have a significant effect worldwide: school. "The one social factor that researchers agree is consistently linked to longer lives in every country where… more