Started this year, the Most Admired Knowledge City Awards (MAKCi) recognize those communities around the world that are successfully engaging in formal and systematic knowledge-based development processes under the flag of Knowledge Cities. The winning cities in 2007 were Singapore, Boston, and Barcelona.

The MAKCi Framework to assess a… more

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is determined to reduce poverty in New York, but first he needs to know how many poor people there are.

Federal standards are little help since they don't take into account the value of housing vouchers, food stamps, subsidized child care, and cash from the earned income… more

Reading Adam Nossiter's "New Orleans Journal" this morning in the New York Times, I was struck again about the elements of a city that make people call it home.

Attempting to explain the importance of the return of "the distinctly urban noise of grinding wheels and brakes" of the St.… more

We've been thinking about the meaning of Home and what constitutes Home in our mobile world. The problem is crystallized in an article today by Habibul Haque Khondker in the Daily Star.

"Globalisation has many casualties. Who is a resident and who is a non-resident has been blurred by globalisation.

"Once… more

Watching an aging parent finally have to give up a car in a city where a car is the only way to get around is a slow-motion horror. (In our case, a timely flood totaled the car, and our excuse to "take the care away" was ready made.)

Now is… more

Here's an entry worth reading from one of my favorite blogs. Idris Mootee advises on how the manage the creative class.

I know better than to believe any school superintendent's press clippings. The job is complicated, and what (and who) looks good in the beginning can turn sour in the end. But the first time I met Michelle Rhee, then head of The New Teacher Project and now D.C.… more

A new report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that teens from single-parent families are more likely to have started a blog than teens living with married parents. Teens in lower-income homes are more likely to blog than those in homes with higher-income brackets. And… more

Unanimous approval this week by New Orleans City Council cleared the way for plans to demolish 4500 public housing units after a protracted fight between HUD and New Orleans residents, activists and preservationists.

I've seen preservationists stop some impressive projects. Even though I've lived in a historic landmark for 30 years,… more

The suburban shopping mall was supposed to evoke a European city center, even though its inventor Victor Gruen air conditioned the first one in 1956 to a perfect "Eternal Spring" temperature of 75 degrees. By the 70s indoor shopping malls were proliferating and by the 80s they were tightly… more

Observations from the NESTA blog on Making Innovative places...

My final comment is one of observation and challenge. Richard Leese talked of a city’s ‘strategic capacity’ in decision-making and leadership. Charlie Leadbeater observed that Richard himself had over the course of 20 years walked the line between civic boosterism and… more

CEOs for Cities is launching a Places of Innovation initiative in 2008, and we'll be building on the work of NESTA. Find a terrific set of presentations on the topic hosted by NESTA here.

Yesterday, I was reading a speech by the mayor of a major U.S. city about how, in the absence of federal action, he and fellow mayors must take action on climate change. So far, so good.

But when he described his own plans, he outlined a modest set of initiatives that… more

According to polling by The New York Times and CBS News, young adults are paying considerable attention to the campaign this year, contrary to their reputation for being disengaged.

The Times reports that almost a quarter of young people now say they are paying a lot of attention to the… more

Here's an idea for re-using vacant land in shrinking cities:

Farmadelphia is Front Studio's proposal for transforming Philadelphia's vacant and abandoned lots into a thriving agricultural zone – complete with crops grown for local consumption and soil remediation, and with an eye toward future tourism, including surreal petting zoos,… more

I hope you'll take 10 minutes and have a look at this YouTube video.

Next time someone tells you the world is flat, send them this URL.

This is GDP per unit of area for the globe. The spikes correspond to
the densest concentrations of economic activity: cities.

Alex Goldberg is a child of the streets of New York. Although only 14, Alex is an extraordinarily well-connected, street-savvy kid who hangs with the Knicks, Jamie Foxx, and other assorted celebrities, along with assorted neighborhoods shopkeepers and restaurateurs.

According to a profile in last week's New York… more

New Zealand needed a new Policing Act. So why not use a wiki to capture public views on what the new act might look like.

The response was overwhelming, especially after news of the wiki spread internationally.

See it here (and thanks for Suzanne Walsh at Lumina Foundation for alerting… more

Certain critics like to dismiss urban enthusiasts as latte swilling elites.

In light of that charge our friend and resident economist Joe Cortright passed this along.

Oak Brook, Ill.-- McDonalds Corp has agreed to pay its franchisees 40
percent of the cost of outfitting U.S. restaurants to serve specialty
coffees . .

McDonalds… more

Business Week leads with a story on subways as the new urban status symbol.

"It seems like everywhere you turn these days, a new high-speed train is whisking more passengers across longer distances faster than ever before. A ride to Paris from London is quicker than flying; Japanese bullet… more

Andrew Taylor, one of my favorite bloggers at The Artful Manager, opined about the loss of local voice on local radio. One person, from his home studio, can become the so-called "local" voice for three or four stations.

Andrew wrote, "Most arts organizations are creatures of place. Their markets are… more

A story in Sunday's Charlotte Observer by Liz Chandler and Ted Mellinik reminds me of southeast Memphis suburbs that declined in record time....

A band of new suburban neighborhoods that held promise for thousands of Charlotte families is now struggling with crime, blight and falling home values.

These neighborhoods were hit hard… more

"Manhattan, not suburbia, is the real friend of the environment." That's Ed Glaeser weighing in on the sustainability of city living back in January in the New York Sun.

The patron saint of American environmentalism, Henry David Thoreau, was
no fan of cities. At Walden Pond he became so "suddenly… more

In the belief that a good bookstore can make a neighborhood, here are photos of one knock-out example in Maastricht, Netherlands.

Unfortunately, today's Seattle Times printed an op-ed blaming cities for global warming. It actually argued for "smart sprawl" to combat the urban heat island effect. The piece originally appeared in The Washington Post October 14.

Here's a sensible response based on fact, not fiction, from Scott Bernstein, President of the Center… more

You know about Brad Pitt's plans unveiled this week to rebuild New Orleans Lower Ninth Ward.

Here are his team members in "Make It Right":

Graft (Los Angeles)
William McDonough
Cherokee Fund
John Williams Architects

Project architects and their designs for Lower Ninth homes (who, unfortunately, got lost in… more

Yesterday, I finally managed to connect with Deepa Naik and Trenton Oldfield, the young founders of London-based This Is Not A Gateway (TINAG). Their plan is to hold a self-organizing festival of ideas throughout London October 24-27, 2008 for people whose point of reference is the city.

TINAG has no… more

John Murrell, who writes Good Morning Silicon Valley, reports that starting Tuesday on a NY-to-SF run, JetBlue will provide passengers with a free, but limited, form of Net access aboard a specially equipped Airbus A320. The service will be accessible to travelers using two BlackBerry models, the 8820 and 8320,… more

San Jose Director of Economic Development Paul Krutko and I talked this morning about the radical transformation taking place in that city at the insistence of San Jose's innovative economy CEOs. The city's suburban-style single-use office parks are being replaced with much more dense mixed-used development.

CEOs say that in their… more

Nice post today at Innovation Philadelphia on why employers and employees in creative industries fail to find each other. Sometimes, it's the simplest things that keep people who need people apart.

Employers use general jobs sites and mis-label jobs while employees fail to emphasize their "soft" skills.

It's important not to… more

Working college campuses in his bid to become the Democratic nominee for President, Barack Obama is calling for the expansion of the AmeriCorps public service program from its current 75,000 positions to 250,000 slots and doubli g the Peace Corps from its current 7,800 volunteer positions to 16,000 positions by… more

Although we disagreed with the facts of his case, we certainly agree with Joel Kotkin that cities ought to make themselves children-friendly. While young adults are the most mobile Americans and should, therefore, be a target of opportunity for cities looking to build their labor force, families with kids are… more

Thursday I visited the newly re-opened Detroit Institute of Arts. It is a magnificent collection made better by its new organization and interpretation in its new building.

Offered 40 hours of free admissions, 57,554 people visited DIA during its re-opening weekend. What a fabulous asset for Detroit and for… more