Future Farmers may be the least likely name for an artists collaborative. But it does, indeed, describe the work of artist Amy Franceschini, now, quite literally. As winner of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's recent commission, Amy is using an inspiration from World War II-era America to spark a citizen movement to make San Francisco the garden city. In 1995, she co-founded Atlas, an online magazine. Amy has taught at art and design schools in San Francisco and currently teaches as a lecturer at Stanford University in the Art Department.

Also with us from San Francisco is Dr. Isabel Wade, founder of the Neighborhood Parks Council. It's an open source network of citizen volunteers using technology and political pressure to keep the city's parks maintained. In March 2000, Dr. Wade and the NPC spearheaded a coalition of other non-profits to pass two ballot initiatives that would begin and continue the restoration of city parks and the acquisition of open space.

We'll talk with two remarkable entrepreneurs who are greening San Francisco this week on Smart City.

Cities are like elephants. They get more economical with size. That's the conclusion of Dr. Geoffrey West, president of the Santa Fe Institute. Together with ecologist Jim Brown of the University of New Mexico, he is producing important new insights on how cities grow, why they fade, and what we can do about it.

Also with us is Denise Nunes to talk about her recent experiences as a volunteer reconstructing devastated homes in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward. Denise is a Williams College graduate and a native of Evanston, Illinois.

Breathing new life into cities, this week on Smart City.

Exploring what it means to be a Creative City has been a regular topic on Smart City. This week we'll visit with Lynda Dorrington who is leading her own creative city movement in Perth, an isolated city on the west coast of Australia. Lynda is executive director of FORM, a craft organization serving Western Australia and the platform from which she has launched a much bigger creative capital initiative.

We'll also talk to Dan Himmelberg, an architect turned workshop leader. His firm, Xpress Ideas, uses innovative methods to gather public opinion to create good design solutions, long range planning and programming. Dan's base is Overland Park, Kansas.

We are forming a creative city, this week on Smart City.

What would you be willing to do to put 2.6 billion extra dollars into your local economy each year? Would you be willing to drive 4 fewer miles a day?

That's what Portlanders are doing, and it's paying big dividends for their city. Joe Cortright, economist with Impresa Consulting, will tell us about the calculations he's made that produce Portland's Green Dividend.

We'll also find out from Jon Herrmann and Josh Sevin about Philadelphia's comprehensive program to attract top college students...introduce them to the city while in school and hang on to them once they graduate. Jon heads Campus Philly, an organization that promotes active involvement of students with the city's social, civic, and professional communities. Josh is the Manager of Knowledge Industry Initiatives for Philadelphia's Department of Commerce.

Our subjects are Portland's Green Dividend and strategies to build Philadelphia's talent pool this week on Smart City.

Good urban design is central to any city's success. This week's guests are shaping cities in important ways by making and celebrating good design.

Simeon Bruner is founder of the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence, a national award for urban places, and this year's Gold Medal winner is the Pittsburgh Children's Museum and Family District. We'll talk to Simeon about the competition and the projects recognized this year.

Also with us is Margi Nothard, designer of an outstanding new public space in Hollywood, Florida - ArtsPark at Young Circle - which may define a whole new category of urban amenity.

Our subject is urban design this week on Smart City.

Providence, Rhode Island, was once the manufacturing center of the nation. The legacy of that history is a magnificent collection of mostly abandoned mills that are slowly being reclaimed for new uses. Clay Rockefeller might not call himself a developer but he is the man behind two exciting mill revivals. His latest is The Steel Yard. We'll talk to him about his experience as artist cum developer.

Also with us is Tom Borrup who, like Clay, has used art to revitalize communities, first as director of Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis and now as a consultant. His book, The Creative Community Builders' Handbook, was released last year by Fieldstone Alliance.

Since the opening of Millennium Park in Chicago, parks have become the hottest urban amenity. But Char Miller, director of urban studies at Trinity University reminds us that this is the second golden age of parks. Bold civic visions in the 19th century gave us the great parks we enjoy today. We'll find out what we can learn from that earlier era that can lead to better parks for cities today.

And we'll talk to Ben Shields who is tracking the elusive sports fan and how urban entertainment marketers can find their audience. Ben is co-author of The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace and he is a frequent media commentator and speaker on the sports marketing industry.

That's this week on Smart City.

Innovation is now viewed as America's economic salvation. Every urban leader is trying to figure out how to get more of it. And they couldn't find a better adviser than Richard Lester. As founding director of the Industrial Performance Center at MIT, Richard has led major studies of regional innovation performance and he co-authored Innovation - The Missing Dimension on sources of creativity and innovation.

Also with us is innovator and serial entrepreneur Robin Chase, founder of ZipCar. Today, the hourly rental service has 50,000 users in 10 cities. With her latest company, GoLoco, Robin hopes to jumpstart ride sharing in America.

A new study from Americans for the Arts claims that each year in America the nonprofit arts and culture industry generates $166 billion in economic activity. Our guests this week are leading efforts to make sure their cities get a big piece of that action.

We'll talk to Vincent Kitch about Austin's strategies to promote film and music, Ginger White about Denver's programs to support art and space for artists, and Jair Lynch in Washington about his attempts to develop artist housing. Plus, we'll find out how arts organizations are finding new audiences from Surale Phillips.

Vincent Kitch is Cultural Arts Program Manager for the City of Austin. Ginger White is Senior Economic Development Specialist for the City of Denver's Office of Cultural Affairs. Jair Lynch heads Jair Lynch Companies, a development firm in Washington, D.C. And Surale Phillips is President of Decision Support Partners in Bozeman, Montana

The Arts in America...this week on Smart City.

Religion has become a sort of battleground in America for some of the nation's most divisive issues. Buzz Thomas is attempting to cool the heat and shed light on what keeps us at odds in his new book from St. Martin's Press, Ten Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't Because He Needs His Job). As head of the Niswonger Foundation, Buzz is also deeply involved in turning around schools in some of Tennessee's rural and most poverty stricken counties.

We will also talk about reconnecting Massachusetts' gateway cities with Brookings policy director Mark Muro and MASS, Inc. president John Schneider. Prior to joining Brookings, Mark was a senior policy analyst at the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University, staff writer for Boston Globe, and editorial writer for the Arizona Daily Star. Before joining MASS Inc. John directed a regional planning and economic development partnership in the state's high tech corridor which facilitated public-private collaborations on sustainable development issues.

All this and more on this week's Smart City.

What makes cities successful? It's a question we ask every week here on Smart City. And this week we have two authorities from the University of Chicago to address that topic - one with a very local view and the other with a global outlook.

Sean Safford has studied the decline of Rust Belt cities and found that particular kinds of social networks were key to a city's ability to renew.

Saskia Sassen has studied global cities and concluded that corporate headquarters are less important to a city than are globe-trotting consultants.

We'll talk to Sean Safford and Saskia Sassen on the next Smart City.

Please note: This is a rerun of a show from March 11, 2006.

With 25-34 year-olds 30 percent more likely than other Americans to live in central cities, there's a big opportunity for cities to capture new people and new money. But what happens when these young adults begin to couple and have children. Will they remain in cities? Or will they make the traditional trek to the suburbs to raise their kids?

It's a question Steve Babitch and Clint Barth have been wrestling with and they'll tell us what they've learned. Both gentlemen just earned Master of Design degrees from the Institute of Design in Chicago. Steve's area of focus is innovation strategy and planning, and his work includes a stint at Doblin, Inc. Clint is a designer who has worked with small start-ups, nonprofits and Fortune 100 companies and is currently a consultant for Gensler.

Also with us is Dr. Heather Weiss who founded the Harvard Family Research Project to support the successful development of children from birth to adulthood. Heather is also Senior Research Associate and Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Our subject is kids in cities this week on Smart City.

Mayors from around the world convened this week in New York to get serious about climate change. They have a growing number of examples to learn from and one of the best is Starbucks. Tony Gale, the company's Corporate Architect, is with us to share the ground-breaking work Starbucks is doing to make its stores green and how its work can influence others.

Dr. Joe Schwieterman is Director of DePaul University's Chaddick Institute, which promotes effective urban planning. Today, effective urban planning means sustainable urban planning, and the biggest chits in play are transportation and buildings.

We'll talk about sustainability and how cities are achieving it this week on Smart City.

Urban redevelopment has been fun to watch over the past decade. Surprising projects are popping up everywhere, and our guests this week are behind some of the most interesting.

Eve Picker is transforming Pittsburgh's long-ignored downtown buildings into stylish residences and offices, setting the stage for future residential development in the heart of that city. Trained as an architect and urban designer, Eve has built an entrepreneurial real estate development business called No Wall Productions in Pittsburgh.

Jeanne Goodman was the very first investor in Boston's Jamaica Plain Cohousing where she now lives. It is an unusual style of shared living with neighbors to fit today's busy lifestyles. Jeanne is a co-housing advocate with Ecodevelopments. Her newest project is EcoVillage.

We'll talk with Eve Picker and Jeanne Goodman about urban redevelopment this week on Smart City.

Many cities are banking their future on the promise of logistics - the industry devoted to moving stuff from the maker to the market. While the industry has grown more sophisticated with information and technology, success still depends on transportation. Rob Hoffman, the former director of business development for World Business Chicago and a specialist in trade, is with us to talk about the state of transportation and how it affects a major growth industry in the U.S. Prior to joining World Business Chicago, Rob led the Industrial Marketing and Sales practice at the Chicago Manufacturing Center.

We'll also talk to Sara Rogers about the Urban Academies of Broward County in South Florida, a recent Harvard Innovations in Government Award winner. Sara is a lifetime educator having served as a math teacher, assistant principal and principal for thirty years.

And we hear from Reena Jana of BusinessWeek.

Banking on our cities' futures, this week on Smart City.

Why do great strategies fail? That's the question Michael Raynor asks in his new book, The Strategy Paradox. Michael says the job of leaders is to embrace the inherent uncertainty of strategy and recognize that the future can't be predicted. Instead of making choices, leaders create options. Michael is a Distinguished Fellow with Deloitte Research in Boston.

Our second topic this week is a strategy critical to cities - how to leverage universities and other anchor institutions to contribute fully to urban success and, in turn, to their own. Dr. David Maurrasse of Marga is with us to talk about the challenges and rewards of these partnerships. David is on the faculty at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

What would happen if every anchor institution in your city -- your universities, libraries, parks, major sports facilities, and museums -- were in perfect alignment around a few big goals, contributing their maximum to your city's success and their own?

Our guests this week are leading anchor institutions with imagination and energy, and they are key participants in an upcoming discussion to take place May 1st and 2nd in San Jose on the topic of Leveraging Anchor Institutions for Urban Success.

Paul Holdengräber is the Director of Public Programs and LIVE from the NYPL at the New York Public Library. Josephine Ramirez is Vice President of Programming and Planning at the Music Center in Los Angeles.

They are both transforming the role of anchor institutions in their communities, and we'll talk to them this week on Smart City.

Getting corporate CEOs involved in civic affairs can be a challenge. Globalization, mergers, consolidations and franchising conspire to keep the attention of top business leaders focused anywhere but in their own hometowns. But the commitment this week's guests have to their local communities runs counter to the larger trend.

Cliff Hudson is chairman and CEO of Sonic, the company headquartered in Oklahoma City that franchises its drive-in restaurants around the country. But Cliff also holds the title of chairman of the Oklahoma City School Board, a position to which he was elected in 2000. Cliff compares the experience of running a major business with running a major school system this week on Smart City.

Carl Guardino has the job of leading CEO involvement in the public affairs of Silicon Valley. His members are among the leading technology companies in the world. So what are they doing involved in housing, transportation, and education in the Valley?

We'll have the answer to this question and more this week on Smart City.

Sustainability is the new imperative for urban leaders. And now there is a new way to encourage and even measure a community's sustainability. It's called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Neighborhood Development -- LEED-ND for short - and it extends criteria for green building to neighborhoods. Jennifer Henry from the U.S. Green Building Council is with us to talk about the new guidelines and the impact they will have on cities.

Also with us is Dr. Helen Mulligan who has been exploring ways that cities, particularly older industrial cities, can take advantage of the growing interest in green technologies to fuel local economic development. Helen is a director of Cambridge Architectural Research Limited.

Our subject is the greening of cities, this week on Smart City.

Educating children from America's cities may be the toughest challenge urban leaders face. This week, we'll talk to three guests who are deep into meeting that challenge.

Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson is the nation's only mayor who has the power to charter schools. His point person in setting up and running the chartering operation is David Harris who is with us this week. David and Mayor Peterson have been recognized for their efforts with an Innovations in American Government Award.

Irasema Salcido is founder of the Cesar Chavez Public Charter Schools in Washington, D.C. The schools use each subject - even music -- to teach public policy. We'll find out from Ms. Salcido and music teacher Emily Isaacson about life inside a charter school.

Finally, we find out the latest in city travel from Keith Bellows, editor of National Geographic Traveler.

Comparing the unique shops and restaurants of cities is one of the pleasures of traveling. Kaie Wellman has made it her business to find them, photograph them and present them to readers in her series of eat.shop.guides. Kaie is a native Oregonian who attended Parsons in New York, then traveled the world, doing a stint as art director for Motown Records before landing back in Portland.

Also with us is Michael Sylvester, who has a different story about independence. Michael is publisher of fabprefab, a web resource dedicated to tracking developments in the market for modernist prefab dwellings. If you think prefab is about dreary trailers and look-alike tract housing, then think again, because prefab homes are among the most exciting being built today. Michael is also content strategist for Dwell Magazine.

Not too many years ago, our nation's capital was considered unsafe, unappealing, and generally unlivable. But today, everywhere you look, there are cranes in the air, and housing prices have soared as redevelopment and new building have made the district a very attractive market.

This week, we talk about Washington, D.C. as a place to live and do business with experts who are two of its major change agents.

John Hill is CEO of Federal City Council in Washington, D.C. John works to enhance the nation's capital by focusing the creative and administrative talents of Washington's business and professional leaders on major problems and opportunities that are facing the city.

Erik Bolog is managing partner of Tenacity Group, a Bethesda, Maryland-based vertically integrated real estate conglomerate that specializes in turning apartment dwellers into homeowners.

Our subject is Washington, D.C...not as politics but as home, this week on Smart City.

The population of many cities in Europe, the U.S. and Australia are in decline. There are too few births to replace those who die and, for a variety of reasons, they are not attracting immigrants. In some cities, the economic foundations have crumbled due to major industrial dislocations.

They are called shrinking cities and joining this week are three experts to discuss what's happening and why. Thorsten Wiechmann has studied decline in Dresden, Germany, Cristina Martinez-Fernandez's research is focused on shrinking cities in Australia, and Emmanuèle Sabot compares cities in the United Kingdom and France.

We'll explore the dynamics at work in shrinking cities this week on Smart City.

Authenticity is one of those qualities that is hard to define, but you know it when you see it - or feel it. We're going to explore its meaning and its application to places this week with James Gilmore and Scott Russell Sanders.

Jim Gilmore is the man who, with his partner Joe Pine, introduced the idea of The Experience Economy. Now, Jim believes the next big idea for business is authenticity. And he believes the same may be true for cities. Jim and Joe run the business consultancy, Strategic Horizons and he is a Batten Fellow at The Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia.

From his vantage point as a writer and Distinguished Professor of English at Indiana University, Scott Russell Sanders has challenged the "brand and bland" direction of our communities and urges us to re-discover what makes each one special. Scott's latest book is A Private History of Awe, which is a coming-of-age memoir, love story, and spiritual testament.

We'll talk to Jim Gilmore and Scott Sanders about authentic places this week on Smart City.

Anyone who has visited Chicago's Loop has probably seen the famous Picasso sculpture in Daley plaza. But when it was unveiled on August 15, 1967, it was compared to everything from a dodo bird to a giant cheese slicer. Kim Babon has been studying this and other controversies surrounding public art. Kim has spent nine years researching the public art debates, trying to determine why some pieces hit a nerve when others don't. Kim is a doctoral candidate in the University of Chicago's sociology department.

Also with us is Faye Nelson who is leading the development of Detroit's riverfront. Faye is President and CEO of the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy. Prior to her appointment, she was Vice President, Governmental Affairs for Wayne State University, where she led the development of the Wayne State University research and technology park.

We'll talk about public art and public riverfronts as urban amenities this week on Smart City.

This week our guests are from Fayetteville, Arkansas and the City of New York - two very different communities in many ways. But they are both seeking better solutions for land use and transportation.

Dan Coody is Mayor of Fayetteville who has a startlingly progressive vision for a mid-size city in Arkansas that shares a region with Wal-Mart. First elected in November, 2000, Dan is serving his second term as Mayor. Prior to his election, Mayor Coody was involved in a number of projects, including the development of a unique residential subdivision in the area that received the city's award for tree preservation.

Robert Paaswell is a much heralded transportation executive who is challenging the usual solutions to congestion. Robert is Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering, City College of New York and Director of the University Transportation Research Center, Region II, a federally funded center that provides research and training to transportation professionals.

This week Smart City is searching for the answers to questions facing cities all across the country.

Can cities rebound from disaster? Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams is convinced his city is on the rebound from years of job losses and despair. At 36, Mayor Williams is the city's youngest mayor, and he is determined to turn Youngstown's "shrinking city" condition into an opportunity. Prior to resigning from City of Youngstown to run for Mayor, Mr. Williams spent five years as director of the city's Community Development Agency.

Eugenie Birch and Susan Wachter have been looking at disasters of another sort. Their new book is Rebuilding Urban Places After Disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina. Eugenie is professor and chair of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design. Susan is a professor of real estate and finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

We'll talk to Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams, along with Genie Birch and Susan Wachter about recovering from disaster this week on Smart City.

Do U.S. automakers have any new ideas about how to make congested, polluted cities more accessible? Can they think beyond 1.8 cars per household?

David Berdish of Ford insists they can. David is developing sustainable mobility solutions for the world's mega-cities. David is Manager of Social Responsibility and Organizational Learning at Ford where he has worked for 24 years in the areas of Production, Program Management, Finance, Quality, Business Planning and Organizational Learning.

Also with us is Marsha Miro, acting director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, which is opening a new exhibition this month about shrinking cities worldwide. Marsha previously taught art history at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit and has numerous books and a film on Cranbrook to her credit.

We'll talk about the challenges cities face in moving people and managing population shrinkage this week on Smart City.

There was a time not too long ago when colleges and universities thought of themselves as very separate from their host cities. But that's a dying notion and clear evidence of that is Campus Compact, a coalition of more than 1000 colleges and university presidents who promote civic engagement among students and faculty. To tell us about the work of Campus Compact, we have its president, Maureen Curley and Roger Mandle, president of the Rhode Island School of Design.

Promoting civic engagement in a very different way is Vicki Been. Vicki's work at the Furman Center for Real Estate and Public Policy is helping New Yorkers unravel the mysteries of real estate development proposed in that city so that they can influence what happens.

This week we roll up our sleeves and get involved...right here on Smart City.

Resilience is a quality that is greatly underrated in successful cities. Our guests this week are making their own special contributions to understanding how to make cities resilient.

Sadhu Johnston is leading what may be the nation's best known municipal green program. Sadhu is the Commissioner of the City of Chicago Department of Environment where he manages a whole host of programs intended to restore and protect Chicago's natural resources. Prior to working for the City of Chicago, Sadhu served as the Executive Director of the Cleveland Green Building Coalition.

Also with us is Brett Parson, winner of the Harvard Innovations in Government Award, about his success in breaking the barriers between the police and the gay community in Washington, D.C. Brett heads the DC police Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit.

All this and more on this week's Smart City.

As the New Year gets underway, we all turn our attention to the future. But for our guests this week, it is their job to think about the future and its implications for cities and for business.

Tara Lemmey is founder and CEO of LENS Ventures, a network of leading thinkers focused on strategic innovation. Tara is attempting to help urban leaders adopt the ways of venture capitalists to innovate their way to the future. She is a leading member of the Markle Taskforce on National Security in the Information Age, where she heads the technology committee.

Jody Turner is founder and CEO of Culture of Future where she tries to make trends from a fuzzy future clearer for companies like Nike, Starbucks and IDEO. Jody worked in graphic design for 25 years and transitioned into trend and design-based strategies.

Understanding the future is our topic this week on Smart City.

If losing weight is one of your New Year's resolutions, you may want to consider moving. According to Reid Ewing, a research professor at the National Center for Smart Growth, where you live may have a lot to do with how much you weigh. Reid's study of sprawl and obesity in American youth appeared in the December 2006 issue of American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Also with us is Todd Litman, founder and executive director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, who challenges all conventional wisdom on how we ought to be getting around our cities. Todd is author of the Online TDM Encyclopedia, a comprehensive Internet resource for identifying and evaluating mobility management strategies.

We begin the new year with some new thinking...this week on Smart City.

The way we live is influenced by factors we are often only barely aware of. Take land use, for instance. Few of us think about us. Fewer still understand how it works and how it is influenced.

But that's not the case with our guests this week. Robert Puentes is a fellow with the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program, specializing in policy options for older suburban America and transportation and infrastructure. Prior to joining Brookings, Rob was the director of infrastructure programs at the Intelligent Transportation Society of America.

Katherine Perez is Vice President of Development at Forest City Development, where her focus is on transit oriented development and development in emerging communities. Katherine is a professional transportation planner with experience in national transportation policy, regional planning and local government. Previously she worked as Deputy to the Mayor of Pasadena, California.

Development and land use are our topics this week on Smart City.

Can the very thing that plagues a city also be the solution to its problems? Steven Johnson may have that answer. He is the author of the new book The Ghost Map that details the mystery of the Broad Street cholera outbreak in London in September of 1854. Steven writes The Urban Planet blog for the New York Times where he explores the most interesting questions about cities.

Also with us is Jacky Grimshaw. Jacky works with the Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago where she directs the center's transportation and air quality program and is responsible for the center's research efforts, computer modeling programs, and community development activities. Jacky has extensive experience developing consensus in support of less-polluting transportation options and initiating programs that assist the revitalization of inner-city neighborhoods.

Finding remedies to what ails cities, this week on Smart City.

Imagine a Learning City where everything - literally everything - is turned into an opportunity to teach something new and all day, everyday is considered a teachable moment.

Kevin Crowley is director of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out of School Environments, and he and his team have been working on turning the urban environment into one big classroom. Students at UPCLOSE work closely with community partners, including the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, The Mattress Factory, The Warhol Museum, and the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh to help them think about how visitors use, talk about, and learn from their exhibitions.

Also with us is Ken Hughes whose Blueprint for Santa Fe's sustainability is becoming a model for cities around the world. Ken is a member of the Sierra Club's Building Healthy Communities Committee and a Knight Fellow in Community Building at the University of Miami. Ken is also chief planner for the state of New Mexico's Department of Finance and Administration.

Living in a Learning City, this week on Smart City.

Cities have always been hotbeds of innovation. This week, our guests offer perspectives on innovation both from the past and the future.

Steel Cities were once the very embodiment of innovation. Dr. Kenneth Thompson, associate professor of psychiatry and public health at the University of Pittsburgh, is part of an international consortium of scholars and civic leaders who are attempting to understand the shared histories of Steel Cities and how they can draw on their histories to make a new future.

Larry Keeley is helping urban leaders invent their cities' futures. In a series of Urban Innovation Workshops staged earlier this year with CEOs for Cities, Larry taught the methods of innovation to leaders in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Columbus and Memphis/Shelby County. Larry is a frequent lecturer and teacher about frontiers of innovation and strategy and he has worked with such companies as Aetna, Apple, Citigroup, ExxonMobil, Hallmark, McDonald's, Motorola, and Pfizer. Larry is co-founder, president and Thought Leader at Doblin.

Innovation is our topic this week on Smart City.

Teach For America is a national corps of outstanding recent college graduates who commit to teach in our nation's public schools for two years. Earlier this year we talked with two Teach for America corps members, Donique Nobles and Shelby Rohrer, just as they were beginning their first week in a real classroom in Memphis City Schools. This week we visit them again to get a firsthand report on how tough the challenge being a first year teacher really is.

Also we'll find out about a remarkable emergency medical transport system that is saving lives and preparing for disaster in Birmingham, Alabama. Joe Acker is executive director of the Birmingham Regional Emergency Medical Services System and he's here to tell us more about this innovative program.

We're reaching out to our students and fellow citizens, this week on Smart City.

Sustainability strategies for cities take many forms. This week, our guests will tell us about two of the most interesting.

Charles Loomis and Juliet Geldi are two members of the design team that conceived Waterwork for Philadelphia. They won the international competition, Urban Voids, staged by the Van Alen Institute and the Philadelphia City Parks Association to develop a compelling vision for the city's vacant lots. Also on their winning team in the competition were Gavin Riggall and Chariss McAfee.

Kenneth Yeang is determined to make high rise buildings green. His new book, Ecodesign: A Manual for Ecological Design, promotes deep green strategies for cities. Ken is a principal in the architecture firm of Llewleyn Davies and Yeang, headquartered in the U.K.

Sustainability is our topic this week on Smart City.

Many communities owe their existence to the routing first, of the railroad, later, of the highway, and then of the interstate. Transportation is fundamental to land values and the way communities grow.

This week's guests are deeply involved in challenging old notions about transportation. Jeffrey Lubell is executive director of the Center for Housing Policy who argues that transportation costs should be considered in junction with housing costs to calculate the real cost of housing choices.

Diane Legge Kemp is designing transit facilities in and around Chicago to link them more intimately with the neighborhoods that surround them to encourage more people to take public transportation. Diane is principal and founder of DLK Design in Chicago.

We'll talk about the ways transportation planning is changing, this week on Smart City.

Did you know that in the United States Congress, there is a task force on Livable Communities? Is your Congressman a member?

Earl Blumenauer is. He represents Portland, Oregon and the people of the 3rd district in Congress, and he founded the House Livable Communities Task Force. He travels the nation advocating for the changes he believes are needed to make our communities better places to live. Congressman Blumenauer is the keynote speaker at this week's Rail~Volution national meeting.

Joining him there is Greg LeRoy. He is founder and director of the nonprofit center, Good Jobs First. Greg says that his studies show that too many public subsidies for business are working against the goals established for them and counter to livable communities.

We put Livable Communities to the floor, this week on Smart City.

The city is a reflection of its people --- their beliefs, their skills, their relationships. Our guests today are working in very different ways to improve the city by improving the lives of the people who live there.

Dr. William Pinsof is president of The Family Institute at Northwestern University. His work with the families of Chicago includes tough advice to parents on how to ensure that their children thrive in the big city. Dr. Pinsof is a clinical professor in the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University, and the director of the Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies at Northwestern.

Stephen Antupit is creating new neighborhoods in the city of Seattle that are socially, economically and environmentally sustainable. Stephen is with Seattle-based Mithun, an architecture, design and urban planning firm building its reputation on sustainable practices.

We'll talk about making healthy cities this week on Smart City.

Update: We have received many requests for a copy of City View's commentator Walker Smith's touching story about his cat, Fred. A copy of the transcript can be downloaded here.

Mavericks are at work in our nation, and they are reinventing everything in their path.

Bill Taylor is the maverick who co-founded Fast Company magazine and with co-author Polly LaBarre he has just written a new book on other remarkable people who are challenging business as usual. It's titled, Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win. Bill was associate editor of the Harvard Business Review and he spent several years in Washington, D.C., working with consumer advocate Ralph Nader.

Tom Payzant is also a maverick. In his ten years as superintendent of Boston Public Schools he shook up the system, introduced choice, and increased critical math test scores. Tom received recognition as Massachusetts Superintendent of the Year and won Richard R. Green Award for Excellence in Urban Education from the Council on Great City Schools. Tom is now a senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

We'll talk about the people who are leading disruptive change in their organizations this week on Smart City.

New immigrants are changing America's cities in many ways, but what is happening in immigrant neighborhoods is not always easily understood. Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Vikki Katz, both at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, are working in the immigrant neighborhoods of Los Angeles to learn how communication flows and what that means to mainstream media and political leaders. Vikki is a Ph.D. student at the Annenberg School. Sandra is the director of the Communication Technology and Community Program there and director of the Metamorphosis Project.

Todd Hoffman, president of Collegia, is also with us this week. Collegia works with colleges and communities to attract and retain top student talent.

We're building a village, this week on Smart City.

The use of new media, particularly by young people, challenges conventional wisdom in many fields - education, social engagement, civic participation. Our guests today have been studying new media and how they may change our most familiar habits and institutions.

Doug Thomas is associate professor at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California. Mimi Ito is a cultural anthropologist working in Japan and the U.S. Together, they'll give us an inside look at new media and their effects.

In addition to teaching at USC Doug is author of Hacker Culture, which provides a detailed firsthand account of the computer underground. Doug's current projects include a new book, Re-Inventing Technology: Cultural Narratives of Technological Change.

Mimi Ito is co-editor of Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life from MIT Press. Mimi has worked for the Institute for Research on Learning, Xerox PARC, Tokyo University, the National Institute for Educational Research in Japan, and Apple Computer.

We also introduce a new segment on the world of urban planning, design, and development from our friends at Planetizen.

Tuning in to new media, this week on Smart City.

What happens when a dying town's civic leaders decide they have to change the way their citizens think about the future? If you're Linz, Austria, you create Ars Electronica. Its artistic director, Gerfried Stocker, is here to tell us the amazing story of the impact the festival and the projects it has spawned have had on the city of Linz. Gerfried is a media artist who has worked on installations and performance projects in the field of interaction, robotics and telecommunications.

Also with us is Ann Daly, an arts consultant based in Austin, Texas, who has advice on where new audiences for the arts can be found. Ann Daly Arts Consulting provides strategic advice on making, funding, and serving the arts. Ann is the author of three books on performing and visual arts and has served as cultural commentator for the New York Times, Village Voice and Chronicle of Higher Education.

And we'll have part two of our interview with Keith Schneider of the Michigan Land Use Institute.

Changing how citizens think about the future, this week on Smart City.

Keith Bellows may have the best job in America. He's editor in chief of National Geographic Traveler and this week he'll tell us about the must see cities on his list of top destinations. And we'll talk about the land use policies that make cities good places to live with Keith Schneider of the Michigan Land Use Institute and Brad Lander at the Pratt Center for Community Development.

Keith Schneider, an environmental writer and former national correspondent for the New York Times, is program director of the Michigan Land Use Institute, a research and advocacy organization he cofounded in 1995.

Brad Lander directs the Pratt Center for Community Development in New York. During Brad's tenure, the Pratt Center has helped to shape a new inclusionary zoning policy to create affordable housing in New York City and to protect the tenure of public housing residents in Staten Island.

Amsterdam, Dubai, Detroit, New York....we'll talk about all those cities and more, this week on Smart City.

Design is ascendant, and today we will celebrate it by talking with Dr. Larry Thompson, president of Ringling School of Art and Design. Larry is staging the Sarasota International Design Summit October 9-11. Prior to coming to Ringling, Larry was the first president and CEO of the Flint Cultural Center located in Flint, Michigan, and served as the director and CEO for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.

Also with us is Dilip Soman, marketing professor at the Rotman School of Management in Toronto, who is using his skills to influence better public behavior. A world-renowned researcher in behavioral economics and marketing, Dilip joined Rotman in 2003 after teaching at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Plus, we'll find out which cities are the angriest in the opinion of Men's Health magazine, this week on Smart City.

Do universities have hidden value to cities? We know about their role as employer, as purchaser of local goods and services, as producer of smart people, and as a source of research. But our guests today are mining their value more deeply and coming up with some surprising results.

Robert Milbourne is president of the Columbus Partnership, a civic-improvement group of central Ohio business and community leaders organized to develop a long-term vision for the city's metropolitan area. Columbus is home to more than 100,000 college students and still, the city suffers a brain drain.

Also with us is Rob Hollister, dean of the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University. A specialist in nonprofit organizations and public policy, Rob has been engaged in teaching graduate and undergraduate students, practicing professionals, and citizens for more than 30 years.

We uncover the hidden value of universities, this week on Smart City.

Is the desire to become a creative city at risk of becoming the latest brand of wishful economic thinking by city leaders?

Our guests today are exploring the potential of creative industries as viable economic development engines. Jasmin Aber is an architect leading research on 'culture-led regeneration' and is part of an international group of research specialists dealing with the problem of "shrinking cities" in a global perspective at the Institute of Urban Design & Regional Development at UC-Berkeley. Jasmin consults on contemporary trends in cultural, social and urban studies and proposes strategies by which these principles may be used to inform future decisions for effective design and sustainable urban planning.

Beth Siegel is president of Mt. Auburn Associates where she has led creative sector strategies for Louisiana, New England and New York City. Beth headed evaluations for the U.S. Economic Development Administration and for the past five years has directed the firm's evaluation work with The Heinz Endowments in Pittsburgh and a consortium of national and local foundations involved in workforce development in Boston.

We'll talk about the pursuit to become a creative city this week on Smart City.

Growing up in cities shouldn't be difficult. Good cities have ample sidewalks, parks, unmatched cultural opportunities and plenty of places to play and explore.

But according to David Driskell, UNESCO chair of Growing Up in Cities at Cornell, that is increasingly not the case. David is working with students around the world to find out from them how cities can be better places for kids, and he is with us this week to tell us what he's learned. David is a practicing planner with extensive experience in community participation, comprehensive planning, and community design, and he is founding principal of Community Planning Collaborative.

Smart City will also talk with Money magazine staff writer Donna Rosato about why only cities with fewer than 300,000 people qualified for the magazine's annual list of Best Places to Live in America.

And we'll visit with Marianne McGinnis at Prevention magazine about the simple joys and big benefits of city walks.

What is the good life? That's a question an upcoming exhibition organized by the Van Alen Institute will explore. Its curator Zoe Ryan is with us to talk about The Good Life: New Public Spaces for Recreation and what cities can learn from the 70 architectural projects it showcases.

Pop City Pittsburgh and Model D showcase the good life each week in Pittsburgh and Detroit. They are online products from Issue Media Group and its founder Brian Boyle, who will tell us why urban America needs a new narrative.

Living the good life, this week on Smart City.

Teach For America is a national corps of outstanding recent college graduates who commit to teach in our nation's public schools for two years. Since its founding 16 years ago by Wendy Kopp, the organization has put more than 14,000 teachers in classrooms and won accolades from the press and from funders. This week's guests are on the front lines of Teach For America working in Memphis city schools, the eighteenth largest district in the country. Brad Leon is executive director of Teach For America and is heading the program in Memphis. Shelby Rohrer and Donique Nobles are two of his recruits.

Brad Leon comes into his role as executive director after four years with Teach For America as a recruitment director, managing recruitment efforts at three major universities which lead to an increase in candidate applications of 96%.

Shelby Rohrer is a recent graduate from the University of Minnesota, majoring in psychology with a minor in youth studies. Donique Nobles earned her Baccalaureate degree from the University of Mississippi where she majored in physics and minored in English and mathematics.

They are all about to begin their first day of school and we'll find out about the challenges they expect to encounter once the students arrive, this week on Smart City.

It's always difficult to leave old ways behind and embrace the new. But our guests this week, working in very different fields, are dedicated to getting us to do just that.

Louis Glazer is urging policymakers in Michigan to let go of that state's industrial past and move into a future based on knowledge and technology where success depends on people becoming more resourceful, life-long learners. Lou is president of Michigan Future, Inc. and he is currently involved in launching a high school designed to connect students to good-paying careers in the automotive industry.

Mickey McManus is working alongside public officials to re-think the world of libraries. It is typical of the kind of radical reconsideration of user needs that his firm MAYA performs routinely for its clients in many fields. MAYA is a design consultancy and technology research lab headquartered in Pittsburgh.

We'll talk about changing old habits and adapting to new realities this week on Smart City.

Growing our communities in ways that are economically and environmentally smart is today's imperative. Our guests this week advise communities on the latest strategies for achieving that goal.

Lee Einsweiler is principal with Code Studio in Austin. He is working with municipalities around the country to develop new land use codes that support their evolution over time and a more harmonious way of life. In addition to his work on more than 40 code projects across the country Lee is currently helping protect fragile historic resources and special natural environments with the Metropolitan Planning Commission in Savannah, Georgia, through revisions of their zoning ordinances.

Paul Polizzotto is founder and CEO of EcoMedia where he is bringing companies and cities together to support new environmental projects. Prior to forming EcoMedia, Paul founded Property Prep, an industrial environmental cleaning company where he pioneered a concept known as Urban Watershed Cleaning and a process called Zero Discharge.

We'll talk about smarter ways for cities to grow this week on Smart City.

For the past 50 years development in America has been sprawling away from the old urban cores into ever farther suburbs and exurbs. Why did it happen?

Our guests this week have some answers. Anthony Flint is author of This Land, The Battle Over Sprawl and the Future of America. It's a history of modern development in our nation and a call for a national conversation about how the country should grow. Anthony is a veteran journalist who covered planning, development, and housing for the Boston Globe for 16 years and was a visiting scholar in 2005 at the Harvard Design School.

Diana Dillaway explores how development decisions affected one American city, Buffalo, New York. Her new book, Power Failure: Politics, Patronage, and the Economic Future of Buffalo, New York is a chronicle of local misfires, misdirection, and missed opportunities. Diana has worked for more than 25 years in California on urban and economic development.

Our subject is sprawl and development this week on Smart City.

Most cities have attempted to revive a collection of historic buildings. Many have tried to create new entertainment districts. And most aspire to have a place enjoyed equally by diverse people.

But few cities have attempted to do all three at the same time in the same place. Fewer still have succeeded. But developer John Elkington has done that for the city of Memphis with Beale Street, and he’ll tell us about it this week on Smart City. John is CEO of Performa Entertainment Real Estate.

Also with us are Denise Bollheimer and Dr. Jim Bailey who are determined to improve the health of their fellow citizens through the efforts of Healthy Memphis Common Table. It is a unique effort to tackle healthy lifestyles through environmental change. Denise is the former board chair of the organization and Jim is division chief of general internal medicine at the University of Tennessee.

We revitalize our bodies and our buildings this week on Smart City.

Who wants to hire people with masters degrees in "administration" when today's business culture demands managers who can master the process of innovation?

That's the question BusinessWeek asked in a recent profile of Patrick Whitney, director of the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology, the nation's largest school of design. Patrick is our guest this week on Smart City, and we'll find out why cities may be the next design frontier.

We also talk with Libby Sartain, who, along with Mark Schumann, is co-author of Brand from the Inside. Libby is senior vice president of human resources and chief people Yahoo and former vice president of the People Department at Southwest Airlines.

We'll talk about how design and smart people management add value to organizations this week on Smart City.

How can the design of physical space and public policy encourage creativity and high performance? We put that question to our guests Clive Wilkinson and Steven J. Tepper. Clive is principal with Clive Wilkinson Architects based in Los Angeles. He has many significant projects to his credit including the new headquarters for Google, where bringing employees together at the right time and in the right space was crucial. The challenge was to use the work environment to encourage creativity.

Researching how to use the urban environment to encourage creativity is part of the work of Steven J. Tepper, assistant professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University. Steven is associate director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy, where he has been documenting what makes cities creative. The Curb Center is a research center dedicated to designing a new roadmap for cultural policy in America.

We talk about places and policies that encourage creativity, this week on Smart City.

The ZeroOne San Jose Festival aims to transform that city into the North American epicenter for the intersection of art and digital culture by showcasing the world's most innovative contemporary artists. This week Smart City talks to festival director Steve Dietz and Kim Walesh, Assistant Director of Economic and Cultural Development for the City of San Jose, about their ambitious plans for their festival of art on the edge and the effect they expect the festival will have on the city.

And we'll talk to Reena Jana who writes for BusinessWeek about the magazine's new focus on design and innovation and about her new book, New Media Art.

How art in its different forms affects cities, this week on Smart City.

College-educated young adults are very much in demand. You could call them the new buffalo being hunted by mayors and economic development officials hoping to make their cities more successful.

CEOs for Cities just commissioned TSC, a division of Yankelovich, to conduct a first-ever study to find out where members of this coveted demographic are choosing to live and why. Meredith Gilfeather, the senior researcher on the project, will tell us whether young adults are choosing the job or the city. And we'll find out which city topped the most preferred list of cities and which city was least preferred.

Plus, we'll talk to a young entrepreneur, Megan Jones, about her experiences in starting and operating Lokion, an interactive company based in Memphis.

We find out what young adults want in cities, on the next Smart City

Getting better education results from our public schools, particularly those that serve our poorest young citizens, is a concern for all of us.

Michelle Rhee is CEO and President of the New Teacher Project. Intent on having a greater impact on systemic education reform, Michelle began building this project in 1997. Her organization has placed 13,000 new, non-traditionally trained teachers in hard-to-staff public schools across the country.

Dr. Stephen Weber is President of San Diego State University where his university's influence on the region includes running three public schools with more than 5,000 students in its poorest communities. Stephen is the past chair of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and co-chairs Partners for K-12 School Reform.

Finally, we have the first of a two part conversation with Rob Lang, Director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, who explodes the geography of regionalism with a new concept he calls the Megapolitan.

We'll talk about how to get more out of the $536 billion we spend each year on education in the U.S. this week on Smart City.

Low wage workers are often just one crisis away from extreme poverty. At America's Family, Steve Bigari recruits employers to take a lead role in addressing the problems that make their workers vulnerable. He's working to break the cycle of persistent poverty by helping workers achieve personal stability and to develop the skills they need to get a foothold on the ladder to the middle class. Steve is our guest this week on Smart City.

We also talk to Lance Berelowitz, author of Dream City: Vancouver and the Global Imagination. We'll find out from Lance why Vancouver seems to be every urban planner's favorite North American city. Lance is an award-winning writer and commentator on urban planning whose education is in architecture and design.

Traveling the road to the Dream City, this week on Smart City.

How to make a city vibrant and then