Blog
FIU Showcases Sustainability at Solar Decathlon
Posted by Shayna Pollock on September 26, 2011 |
CEOs for Cities partner Florida International University is competing in the Solar Decathlon. The competition, sponsored by the US Department of Energy, challenges collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar powered houses. FIU’s entry, the perFORM[D]ance House, responds to its environment, its inhabitants, and its use. The house, which will be displayed on the National Mall until October 2, 2011, showcases sustainable strategies and technologies and promotes FIU’s dedication to sustainability.
Miami 21 Wins National Planning Excellence Award
Posted by Julia Klaiber on January 18, 2011 |
Miami 21, the comprehensive planning blueprint for the City of Miami in the 21st century as envisioned by former Mayor Manny Diaz, received the American Planning Association's 2011 National Planning Excellence Award for Best Practice. The profession’s highest honor recognized the sustainable and efficient development plan for the future for its innovative use of form-based code, a means of regulating development to achieve a specific urban form. “This award is a validation of our dream and desire to turn Miami into a walkable, livable city," said Ana Gelabert-Sanchez, Harvard Loeb Fellow 10-11 and former Planning Director for the City of Miami. The blueprint aims to make Miami a “unique, vibrant place to live, learn, work, and play” by incorporating New Urbanism and Smart Growth Principles to address the unprecedented growth in the region in a sustainable manner.
The timing of the award is prescient as CEOs for Cities and Florida International University finalizes preparations for the Miami Brain Trust, a conversation about the future of a city with a long history of reinvention. That conversation will take place February 3 at the brand new Frank Gehry-designed New World Symphony campus.
Census Gives Miami Good News & Bad
Posted by Julia Klaiber on December 21, 2010 |
With the 2010 Census now published, stories about how we’ve fared in the first decade of the 21st century are popping up everywhere.
In Miami, where key demographic indicators held steady since 2000, education indicators are the big story. A December 18 Miami Herald article reveals the Miami-Dade metro area has seen a nine percent increase in high school diploma holders (from 68 to 77 percent) and a four percent increase in attainment of at least a bachelor's degree (from 22 to 26 percent).
Unfortunately, these gains reflect big disparities in educational attainment among ethnic and racial groups. Miami Dade College president and CEOs for Cities partner Eduardo Padrón is quoted in the article, stating plainly:
"This is not a Hispanic problem or an African American problem. It's an American problem. A much larger proportion of our work force is going to be Hispanic and African American. If these people are not prepared to assume the jobs that are being created in the 21st-century `knowledge economy,' the country is in for real serious problems.''
Padrón citied CEOs for Cities Talent Dividend research, which has calculated the economic impact of boosting college attainment by one percentage point as worth $2.3 billion in personal income to the Miami metro. Read the full article here.
We hope to build on this dialogue when on February 3, together with our partners at Florida International University, CEOs for Cities hosts The Miami Brain Trust where we intend to explore how the city's collective and catalytic leadership is transforming Miami as a place where all its citizens can imagine a better future in the 21st century.