cityLIVE! Continues to Impress

We're always on the look out for examples of how cities (and the civic entrepreneurs who live in them) are coming up with innovative ways to engage citizens and essentailly redefine the civic ethos of a place.  cityLIVE! (which was featured during our Urban 20x20 presentaitons at our last national meeting in Chicago) continues to impress.

CEOs for Cities member (and developer of cityLIVE!) shared with us the success story of the most recent event, and we thought it would be valuable to urban leaders:

Last week, a standing room only crowd of 500 gathered at a cityLIVE! event called "Building Blocks for Urban Education," which sought answers to tow very important questions: Why doesn’t every child in urban America today have access to the best education possible?  How can we bring about the transformation?  Leading the discussion were Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, Marian Heard, President and CEO of Oxen Hill Partners, and founder of the national organization MENTOR, and Mark Roosevelt, superintendent of Pittsburgh Public Schools.

Each panelist made this critical point: although an excellent school system is ideal, it will never be enough.  The community must engage itself in such a way as to wrap each child in all that they need, inside and outside the school system.  This has been the key factor in the success of the Harlem Children’s Zone, where Mr. Canada has been recognized for this pioneering work in education reform.  

The Pittsburgh CEOs for Cities cluster, which has grown to 28 organizations, co-hosted this event.  This group also helped kick off a Kidsburgh page on the e-zine Pop City in conjunction with the event.  This will become a place where educational mentoring, volunteering and donating opportunities will be posted.

cityLIVE! expects to have both edited and unedited event videos posted on their web site in several weeks.  Go to www.citylivepgh.org to find them, along with all of their other event listings.  cityLIVE! is a free, monthly series of events showcasing the creative, intellectual talent of the city, speaking to its transformation and building a community of people who are interested in urban issues.

  

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