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Downtown construction, a heated mayoral race, an award winning land bank, and layered financing are pointed to in this Economist article as evidence of changes in attitudes and visions for the future in Flint, Michigan. While in Cleveland the Fund for Economic Future is creating a regional plan… more

From Daniel Nairn's "Discovering Urbanism" blog...

I caught an Earth and Sky broadcast on NPR last night on why the unprecedented level of global urbanization is ultimately a benefit to the planet. George Martine of the U.N. population report was quoted,

"And we have a world population that is almost 6.7… more

An innovative partnership has been forged in the Queen West Triangle between Artscape, the City of Toronto, Westside Lofts (Urbancorp) and Active 18 that will see the creation of a 56,000 square feet artist live/work project within the Westside Lofts development at 150 Sudbury Street.
The… more

Richard Florida and colleagues Tim Gulden and Charlotta Mellander have just published a new report, "The Rise of the Mega-Region." They use a new measure they call Light-based Regional Product to rank the world's top 40 mega-regions. They also include rankings by population, patents and frequently-cited scientists.

Greater… more

In his latest book, The Future of Management, Gary Hamel calls for the reinvention of corporate management. And where does Hamel recommend managers look for the management principles that will help them do that?

"You start," he writes, by analyzing the DNA of things that already exhibit the… more

Mitchell Kaplan, founder of Books & Books in Miami (Coral Gables and Miami Beach, to be specific) is celebrating his store's 25th anniversary. Tonight, I had an opportunity to interview Mitchell and Stacy Mitchell, author of The Hometown Advantage, with a live audience at Mitchell's fabulous store.

The… more

Here is a nice Business Week article, in which Dev Patnaik outlines five ways that companies tend to misinterpret innovation. The examples are largely product oriented, but the principles apply to any organization trying to create valuable change. A quick overview: 1. Some companies place too much emphasis on… more

The Atlantic is celebrating its 150th anniversary in fine style with a provocative series of short essays on the topic. Ray Kurzweil, an astonishingly prolific inventor, contributed an essay that recaps ideas he's been promoting for some years, but his words struck me with new meaning.

"...information tools are… more

As I was editing transcripts from our fabulous CEOs for Cities National Meeting panel of Tara Lemmey, Robin Chase and Sean Safford on networking, I decided to pause and check out LifeAt.com. It puts a local spin on social networking with password-protected web sites for apartment buildings and housing… more

People are way too slow to figure out that disaster is looming. It takes a strong wake up call, usually from government, to force people into behavior that is in the public (or common) interest.

That's the moral of the story in today's New York Times on the developing… more

This from NY Magazine blog... "Ever since having babies replaced tennis as the sport of choice for young wealthies, the number of children in Manhattan has multiplied — there are 30 percent more in 2005 than 2000, according to census figures..." The boomlet has caused a pitched battle for space… more

Culture hunters, head to Pittsburgh. That where you'll find "Steel City's bluesy, greasy jazz sound played weekly by living legends like Roger Humphries and Joe Negri at the Rhythm House Cafe in Bridgeville," according to this week's New York magazine. Or catch "next-generation-stars like Paul Thompson and James Johnson… more

Find the 10 top trends from the World Future Society here. Note the inclusion of this one...

Water will be in the twenty-first century what oil was in the twentieth century. Global fresh water shortages and drought conditions are spreading in both the developed and developing world. In response, the… more

Tom Friedman calls today for readers who want to be green to add "choosing the right leader" to changing your light bulbs. He cites the work in New York of City Councilman David Yassky who learned that local laws made it illegal to convert the city's taxi fleet to hybrids.… more

This week, I interviewed Dave Feehan who runs the International Downtown Association. When I asked him which downtown comebacks have been the most surprising, he named Memphis, Miami Beach and Long Beach, California. The New York Times has also discovered the charms of downtown Long Beach, featured in today's Tmore

Clyde Haberman last week used his column to remind presidential candidates that 80 percent of Americans live in cities and their suburbs. Yes, they, too care about minorities, taxes, healthcare, and security. But how about transit, the future of public hospitals, poverty, Haberman asked. I would add the development… more

San Diego's Petco Park, home to the Padres, is credited with revitalizing the city's downtown and surrounding area. Real estate agent Brett Schaffter, who works with Bosa Development Corporation that has built nine residential towers in and around downtown, told the New York Times that the park,… more

"My block in Brooklyn plays a good Hudson Street—at least at first glance," writes Andrew Blum. "Each morning, the cigar-store owner throws open his gate, the barber puts out his chairs, the baker begins her muffins, and the old man a few doors down takes up his surveillance from the… more

Legendary transportation entrepreneur Robin Chase, founder of Zipcar and GoLoco, has started a new blog. One of her first posts offers advice to cities on how to support car sharing.

She urges cities to make the start up of car sharing easier by establishing an insurance pool… more

Do we really have blocks in America where we are spending $1 million to incarcerate people? We do, and the Justice Mapping Center has the data and the maps to prove it.

To make the maps, the center obtain home addresses and prison sentences—like three to six years—for everyone… more

Check out this Chicago Sun Times article, where Mark Konkol talks about a new status symbol: The Starbucks Quotient – a way to measure how hot your neighborhood is. The author, while admitting this method is entirely unscientific, reports that one can, in fact, “Google prove” that more Starbucks… more

A Mexican migrant to the U.S. is five times more productive than one who stays home. Why is that?

But the answer is not because the U.S. has more machinery or tools or natural resources, although it does. According to the World Bank, the answer lies in America's "intangible wealth."

The average… more

Dozens of European cities, large and small, aren't waiting for national or international measures to curb global warming, reports Karl Ritter of AP.

London's congestion charge, Paris' city bike program and Barcelona's solar power campaign are examples of local initiatives that are influencing national policies instead of the other way around.

"People… more

Mayor Chuck Reed has announced a bold set of goals to reduce San Jose's carbon footprint of
by more than half. They are called San Jose's "Green Vision Goals." And here they are:

Within 15 years, the City of San Jose? in tandem with its residents and businesses will:

1. Create… more

WorldChanging reports that Google Transit has just expanded its trip-planning service--again. This nifty service now includes nearly 20 US cities and Japan, providing a useful tool in areas where the trip-planning services offered by public agencies leave something to be desired.

It's a bit of a strange collection of… more

We've invited our readers to check out the Smart City Memphis blog, written by our colleague and member Tom Jones. But today's post deserves to be reprinted here in full. Although it is aimed at Memphians, the advice here is worth consideration by urban leaders in many cities.

Answers To… more

(Thanks to Kim Burnett at Surdna for the tip.)

Audacious Ideas is a blog created to stimulate ideas and discussion about solutions to difficult problems in Baltimore. Each week, the blog asks individuals to think candidly and audaciously about what can be done to promote opportunity, achievement, health, and prosperity… more

Kristian Buschmann, of CEOs for Cities, writes on embracing a car-free lifestyle:

Recently, I have discovered the benefits of going car-less. Having grown up in a city devoid of public transit, the idea of giving up my car was almost unthinkable. But then grad school happened and the car had to… more

Brian Bronaugh got it just right when he urged his fellow Pittsburghers to try something. Try anything.

His focus was on the value of distinctiveness, one of our four City Vitals.

"Rightfully so, many people have focused on trying to push the diversity of our region in terms of… more

An article in the Wall Street Journal highlights Adrian Benepe. Mr. Benepe is head of New York's Parks and Recreation. His department oversees 29,000 acres of parkland, 12,000 employees, and a billion dollars to spend in this fiscal year. He is credited with creating 300 acres of new parkland and… more

In order to keep up with the population growth of the Sun Belt, Arizona State aims to increase enrollment by over 40% by 2020. While many equate smaller size with higher quality education, Arizona State’s President, Michael M. Crow, thinks bigger and better can occur simultaneously at an academic institution.… more

There seems to be a recent trend of building continuing-care retirement housing near, and even on, college campuses across the nation. According to a recent New York Times article, these centers are popping up on campuses across the nation, from Loyola University in Chicago to University of North Carolina… more

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has set a goal to plan a million trees over the next 10 years.

How simple and energizing is that?

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Memphis officials have been negotiating for Bass Pro Shops for more than a year for the company to take up residence in its abandoned Pyramid arena. The arena was left empty when the city built the FedEx Forum for the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies and failed to account for the remaining… more

City magazines are a good way to gauge a city's vibe. I just spent a few days in Portland and then flew through Seattle on the way to Edmonton, so I picked up the (very heavy) city magazines for each city.

The cover stories telegraphs all you need to know about… more

Dubai is home to many gee-whiz developments, intended less as city-making than to scream "biggest, best." But the Cloud, another flight of fancy, actually looks pretty dreamy. Featured in last week's Design of the Times, the Cloud is described as "a massive entertainment complex veiled bya puff of condensation that… more

Ralphs Fresh Fare opened in downtown Los Angeles in July, the first supermarket to open in downtown LA in 57 years. The 50,000 square foot store anchors a complex of 267 lofts, with more projects coming online. (Ralphs turned out to be a particularly alluring feature of the complex, with… more

The past two days were spent at the international convening of The Competitiveness Institute in Portland, Oregon, where the primary topic was clusters.

There is, perhaps, no better place to study clusters in the U.S. than in Oregon where clusters have been central to the state’s economic development strategy for years.… more

University of Pennsylvania, the exemplar university in reaching beyond its walls and transforming West Philadelphia, hosted a two-day meeting this week on urban anchor institutions. It was a continuation of the discussion CEOs for Cities hosted in San Jose last May and is continuing through a new Learning Network… more

We are awaiting transcripts to prepare our summary of the National Meeting conversation. But several memorable statements by discussion leaders stand out for me.

• Those longing for economic and job stability are waiting for Godot. Turbulence is the new normal, and the only logical response is to build resilience.
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According to Joe Pine and James Gilmore, authenticity is the logical next topic to the Experience Economy. They explore the topic in their new book, Authenticity. Although some of their arguments seem on first reading a bit convoluted, there are important insights here.

They contend that all consumers,… more

Comedian Jimmy Fallon fronts a cool little walking tour of Brooklyn for NYC. Julianne Moore does the same for the West Village. Ok, so it helps to have your pick of celebrites hanging out in your city, but surely there is local application. more

London has more foreign-born residents than 20 years ago. While London's population was in decline until the early 1980s, immigrants are now boosting the city's population by 50,000 per year.

A report from the London School of Economics concludes, "The city has a long history of playing host to cultural… more