Omar Blaik, the President and CEO of U3 Ventures and a CEOs for Cities member, offers a helpful fresh perspective on how universities and cities gain mutual benefit when they engage each other openly in an op-ed for the Chronicle of Higher Education. (If you don't subscribe to… more

I have my (RED) t-shirt and so do the young men in my family. But a San Francisco-based designer, Ben Davis, is challenging Gap's widely promoted (RED) campaign with a spin of his own. See it at buylesscrap.com.

"Forget Organic. Eat Local" was the cover headline on a recent Time Magazine. Now Whole Foods Market, Inc. is teaming up with Sustain, a Chicago nonprofit, to offer loans to family farmers and artisanal producers who can supply their stores.

Whole Foods has pledged to lend $10 million nationwide to farmers.… more

The Missouri State Board of Education has had enough, leading to the takeover of St. Louis public schools. The city's 93 schools, suffering a graduation rate of only 55 percent, will now be run by a transitional three-member panel with one appointment each by the governor, the mayor and the… more

Today's Wall Street Journal reports that hospitals are developing better healing environments by sharply reducing noise, harsh lighting and other environmental stresses that can spike blood pressure and interfere with breathing and heart rate. "The notion that physical surroundings can affect patient outcomes first gained traction in the late 70s,"… more

A new analysis of census figures released last year by the New York Times concludes that the surge of babies in Manhattan belongs mainly to wealthy white families: "At least half of the growth was generated by children who are white and non-Hispanic. Their ranks expanded by more than… more

Voters in Seattle have sent city leaders back to the drawing board after rejecting two proposals that would offer an alternative to the eyesore that is the double-decker highway along Seattle's waterfront. The choices were another elevated highway or a tunnel option pushed by Mayor Greg Nickels.

But Mayor Nickels… more

Paducah's bold initiative to lure artists from around the country to the small rivertown, has surprised even its biggest advocates. Just goes to show you how strong, courageous leadership, a focused strategy and aligning of resources can produce big payoffs for cities of all sizes. you can read more about… more

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Mayor Gavin Newsom kicked off Arbor Week 2007 today by planting an 18-foot Magnolia tree on Cesar Chavez Street at Precita in honor of legendary farm labor leader Cesar Chavez and announcing the results of his 2007 tree planting goals. The Magnolia tree was the 16,034thmore

The Blue Moon Fund, a Virginia-based foundation, has released a toolkit aimed at helping communities understand that the aging workforce and soon-to-be bump in the number of retirees represent opportunities for new kinds of effective civic engagement and cross-generational learning. The Worldwatch Institute writes:
"'Connecting generations… more

Want to see the future of education? See the new map created for KnowledgeWorks Foundation by the Institute for the Future here.

Globalism was expected to open the way to a more fluid, transparent way of being, and design was supposed to enable that. But it didn't turn out that way. Instead, the New York Times' Nicolai Ourousoff writes that design is reflecting a new state of siege, "exhibited in an architectural… more

The findings should come as no surprise, but a recent study from the University of Washington shows that people who live in more walkable communities are more active than those who live in areas that are less walkable. And since physical activity prevents obesity and functional decline and promotes mental… more

"The State of Design 2007" is the focus of this month's Step magazine. It includes photos from the third triennial exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt, "Design Life Now." None is quite so impressive as that of Acconci Studio's 2003 pod-shaped "Island" spanning the River Mur in Graz, Austria. Now the iconic… more

The Children's Museum of Pittsburgh is sponsoring The Charm Bracelet Project, an international ideas program for improving connections between the cultural assets on the city's North Side to create a family district. Four design teams were invited to respond to the challenge:

* Pentagram (Paula Scher, Drew Freeman);

* Colab Architecture (Felecia… more

San Francisco's plans for city-wide free (or very cheap) Wifi have been stalled by one member of the city's Board of Supervisors in whom "suspicion of corporate interests flows as thick as the fog," reports Ross Mirkarimi in the Economist. Another supervisor, Jake McGoldrick, takes a more modest stance:… more

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has found an innovative and powerful new way to engage parents in the education of their children. The New York Times reports that Bloomberg has appointed Martine G. Guerrier - already a "a veteran education advocate" at the age of 36 - as… more