From today's Columbus (OH) Dispatch: "Regardless of who they adore (or ignore), central Ohio teenagers can agree on one thing: Politics are hot."

Now that young Americans have been politically activated, what will urban leaders do to capitalize on their interest? How will they put them to work in their own… more

Shipping containers as housing? I love it.

CEOs for Cities member Don Carter tells Pop City the eight things that will make Pittsburgh (his home town) great. Don is principal with Urban Design Associates. Nice read.

Freeconomics reigns, according to Wired's Chris Anderson. $0.00 is the future of business, he asserts in the current Wired.

Anderson writes, "The rise of 'freeconomics' is being driven by the underlying technologies that power the Web. Just as Moore's law dictates that a unit of processing power halves in price… more

Creating the next Silicon Valley, Research Triangle or any of the other successful entrepreneurial business clusters around the country calls for economic development policies aimed at fostering entrepreneurially driven growth. That is according to a new report issued today by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which advises local, state… more

You have to appreciate the theater associated with closing 7,000+ Starbucks for three hours today to re-train staff. It can't be terribly efficient, training 135,000 employees at once (unless it is self-training out of a manual). But it does show a flare for the dramatic. (While they are at at,… more

As talk of infrastructure heats up among governors, it is worth mentioning again a study conducted last October by Public Opinion Strategies. In response to the question, "Which of the following proposals is the best long-term solution to reducing traffic in your area?" 75% of respondents said, "Improve public… more

The $100 million New Economy Initiative is an unprecedented commitment by philanthropists to transform a community -- in this case, Detroit and Southeast Michigan. The governing council of the fund is focusing on three high leverage drivers of transformation: Talent, Innovation, and Culture.

The group has only recently begun accepting… more

Cooltown Studios gives a big shout-out to CEOs for Cities report on Remixing Cities by Charlie Leadbeater, calling it a "must-read." "If there's one research document to read to better understand how crowdsourcing," it's this one.

A gathering of mayors, social networking leaders, and other heavy hitters is… more

I am listening to John McCain live on CNN, and he is spending a good part of his speech talking about how we must use America's innovation capability to become oil dependent. He is promising federal funds to develop long-distance car batteries, new green technologies, nuclear energy, and much more.… more

The Big Dig is done, and the promised transformation of downtown Boston is within reach. Read about it in today's NYT.

In an effort to make his city the greenest, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has created the new position of director of climate protection initiatives. Many are criticizing the mayor for creating the post, which pays $160,000. But the mayor's office says that even 25 people working on climate issues… more

I heard it. Senator Barack Obama had a nice mention of cities in his speech tonight in Houston, after another big win in Wisconsin.

The New York Times complained in an editorial this morning that presidential candidates aren't talking about "the nation's struggling cities." "The cities," they write, "have been… more

As cultural organizations continue the battle to find ways of funding and supporting quality programs, the entrepreneurial spark is generating innovative alternatives to the traditional funding routes. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is building a new outdoor amphitheatre in Encore Park to host a variety of rock concerts, Broadway musicals and… more

The recent surge in foreclosures is leading to an increase in neighborhood crime, according to an article in the L.A. Times.

"Every time a neighborhood experiences 2.8 foreclosures out of 100 owner-occupied properties in a single year, crime there and in the surrounding blocks jumps 6.7%, according to a 2006… more

One of our favorite urban writers, Haya El Nasser, reported this week in USA Today on "active living communities" that are striving to become multigenerational to serve the desires of families who want live closer to parents, children and grandparents.

It feels like back to the future, doesn't it? This… more

Versus cable has a new show, "City Limits" that spotlights urban fishing. Love it!

Phooey Architects completed work on Skinners Playground, a backyard for children living in public housing in South Melbourne, Australia – and a low cost, environmentally sound, and socially responsible solution. From Coolhunter.

A New York Times article illustrates one effect of the build up of urban parents: Strollers in bars. On one side, young parents find the local watering hole to be the perfect place to relax while maintaining a grip on their pre-child lifestyles. On the other, childless patrons see… more

The intricacies of arts-lead regeneration of industrial or un-developed areas make the divide between regeneration and gentrification a difficult one to navigate. Problems of balancing the development of an area with retention of the arts communities that kick-started that development, persist in New Jersey according to a recent article.… more

Have a look at this example of a festival event that has stimulated an explosion of other creative development, opening up new activities and opportunities, regenerating industrial areas and drawing audiences to different areas of Miami in the article, The Beach Party Moves Indoors.

Even more interesting is the uptake… more

With the disappearance of so many locally-owned businesses in so many communities, universities are often looked to as the new local civic anchors. But universities may be going the way of corporations in their global outlook. A front page story in today's NYT describes the rush by universities to set… more

NYT reports that during the seven years of the Bush Administration, federal government employment has risen more rapidly than private sector employment -- not because government employment is growing at an unusually fast clip but because private sector gains were modest, even in an economy recovered from the 2001… more

What is the role that community-based arts and cultural activity play in neighborhood development? This is the question that Jeremy Nowak examines in Creativity and Neighborhood Development: Strategies for Community Investment. If you are battling the complexities of enhancing your community and neighborhood, this paper offers some ideas and… more

Bill Ivey, folklorist and former head of National Endowment of the Humanities, defines Authenticity in a comment on Andrew Taylor's terrific blog, Artful Manager

Bill wrote, "'Authenticity' is a near-technical term for folklorists, in that it is used to denote the relationship between an object or performance and underlying community-based… more

Couldn't resist this posting this from the Chicago Tribune on Mayor Daley...

"The mayor introduced an ordinance Wednesday that would slap fines ranging from $150 to $500 on motorists who turn left or right in front of someone on a bicycle; pass with less than three feet of space between… more

I finally visited Melbourne this summer and walked this street. Why don't we see more of these kinds of street in U.S. cities?

Ben Gomberg, who runs the bicycle program for the City of Chicago, shared this with us today on the success of Paris' self-service bike rental program...

A program in Paris began in July 2007, with 10,600 bikes at 750 stations. The program has been extremely successful, with 10 million trips within… more

This one is so dumb that I won't even provide a link. Suffice it to say that Forbes' latest ranking of "America's Most Miserable Cities" is beyond stupid. Let's see.... New York? Right. Miserable. That's why real estate values have jumped to astronomical levels -- and demand keeps increasing. (Note,… more

Is sustainable transport just a dream in U.S. cities?

World City Bike Strategies has issued the first of a cycle of six New Mobility Advisory Briefs in the "Reinventing Transport in Cities: 2007 - 2012" program. The Briefs are examining in depth a selection of promising but complex approaches… more

Presidential campaigns are always a study in communication, never more that this year with Barack Obama's soaring rhetoric. Today CNN ran a long series of clips -- live and taped -- from each candidate's stump speech, each of whom is effective in his/her own way, allowing an interesting comparison.

It prompted… more

Here's stark photographic evidence of the benefits of porous streets.

Find a terrific interview with Willem-Jan Neutelings and photos of his distincitive work here.

How does one design an icon?

In four steps:

0. If it is a contemporary monument,
1. You have to make a distinct building,
2. That represents the nature of the building in its form and cladding,
3.… more

The web is a wondrous thing. Here's a photo from The Atlantic columnist Andrew Sullivan's blog today. It is a view from his window looking south to Trump Tower, the Chicago River and State Street. It is taken three blocks north of the photo I took today from my… more

Observing in Slate that buildings belong firmly to their own time, Witold Rybczynski predicted, "One day, say in 2050, people will look at [new futuristic buildings in Beijing and Abu Dhabi ] Herzog and de Meuron's bird's nest, Andreu's egg, and Koolhaas' twisted donut, and think, 'Pretty good for… more

It is clear that kids have, indeed, arrived in the city when New York magazine is running major articles on tests of baby strollers. Love the urban "street test" that judges how easy it is to manage subway and apartment stairs.

Not only did the number of jobs decline for the the first time in four years. But the number of Americans out of work for at least six months is rising, reaching levels more typically seen deep into a recession or period of job contraction, not at the beginning.

According to… more

Here's an interesting trend map for 2008, derived from Shanghai's underground routes. Download it here.

Nanoptek, a startup based in Maynard, MA, has developed a new way to make hydrogen from water using solar energy. The company says that its process is cheap enough to compete with the cheapest approaches used now, which strip hydrogen from natural gas, and it has the further advantage… more