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We found entries tagged with "innovation" in the following areas:
Good news for city leaders looking for different ideas.
According to Marcia Caines, in this blog, the design trend at the recent International DMY Design Festival in Berlin was greater emphasis on “public space, recycling, re-use and open source technologies”, which she sees… more
This story keeps running so I finally have to comment. It's the story that the Obama Administration is considering backing a plan to shrink deteriorating American cities by bulldozing entire neighborhoods and returning the land to nature. The idea, which originated in Flint, Mich. -- cratered by the auto… more
This morning I learned about Chicago's Red Line Green Roofs. I was instantly intrigued by the project's name. Underway in Chicago’s 48th Ward, it' an effort to activate a neighborhood coalition to design and create 50,000 square feet of green roofs along one of the city's busiest elevated… more
Another brilliant blog post from Ryan Avent who writes,
Do you know Paju Bookcity? I didn't until I found Dana Cho's lovely blog, Goodspace, devoted to design and innovation.
Am I the only one who would think I had died and gone to heaven if I lived in Bookcity? Ok, maybe it's close to a theme park… more
Joe Cortright wrote an important piece for today's Oregonian on why Oregon's economy has faltered and how Oregon should prepare to come back.
Joe warns against believing that when the economy comes back, it will look just like the economy we knew before the recession hit. Clinging to the… more
Why fund arts and culture? That is question tackled by Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein in this compelling argument, where they challenge us to imagine the results of not having these “luxuries”.
Have a look at the wealth of examples that emerge when they see “what… more
I am speaking at the Turning the Tide event today and tomorrow. Good news is that the proceedings are being offered via a free, live webcast from Fort Baker. Watch Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer and Goldman Environmental Prize Winners, artists, scientists, CEOs, journalists, educators, and young activists plan action for… more
Reading Matt Bai's short piece in NYT Sunday Magazine contrasting the culture embodied by GM (and many "old economy" companies) and business culture today, I was struck by this observation: "...younger Americans... have largely dispensed with the mythology of the infallible institution. Transparency and reinvention, rather than stability and… more
Nicolai Ouroussoff must have been eavesdropping on my week. His column in today's NYT was headlined "Reinventing America's Cities: The Time Is Now." Truer words have never been written.
"We long for a bold urban vision," he wrote. "With their crowded neighborhoods and web of public services, cities are… more
Kudos to Jamie Moses, Artvoice publisher in Buffalo, for his magical and brutally honest remarks upon accepting the city's annual Arts Award. If you want to understand the power of a creative city, you must read his speech.
Thursday, I spent the day with Marilyn Higgins at Syracuse University seeing the community work inspired (and pushed hard) by Chancellor Nancy Cantor. Nancy and Marilyn are both smart, can-do leaders who are working to give downtown Syracuse and its Near West Side neighborhood new energy.
The Connective Corridor… more
I'm seeing more of these kinds of workshops...
This Thursday, I will be hosting another Shop 52 Small Business Seminar. My Shop 52 seminars provide education and resources to small business owners and individuals interested in opening their own small business. This one will focus on how small businesses can… more
As I arrived in San Diego for our CEOs for Cities meeting, I received this from our very much missed colleague Joe Cortright who is in Florence.
Hope you are doing well at the national meeting in San Diego. If I were anywhere but here, I'd have definitely… more
Amsterdam is going green fast, and Business Week has the story. Amsterdam will complete its first-round of green infrastructure investments by 2012, making it one of the first and most ambitious adopters of the smart city concept.
moreAs we consider the shovel ready road and bridge projects of the stimulus package, consider this important analysis by our colleague Joe Cortright of the impact modest declines in auto travel have on congestion. And how that could save us big, big money...
Last year, the US made more… more
I found a partial answer to my question about green job at this post on Environmental and Urban Economics blog. Duke's Gary Gereffi has reviewed the green jobs industry and identified promising green jobs in these industries: promising green manufacturing industries;
LED Lighting, High-Performance Windows, Auxiliary Power Units, Concentrating… more
I'm not sure, but according to the task force on the middle class meeting in Philly today, a green job pays 10-20% more than -- what? -- a non-green job. Certainly, the $787 billion stimulus provides a market for green jobs with its $22.5 billion for green investments, including $5… more
Knight Foundation President and CEO Alberto Ibarguen's comments to the WeMedia conference just made my hair stand on end.
He pointed out that there is, for the first time, a disconnect between media reach and where democracy happens. While local newspapers and radio are disppearing, online media… more
Power to the community is the tag line. Go see SeeClickFix to see WeMedia's commercial amount.
It's a Googlemaps mashup that uses crowdsourcing to report problems to public officials and get them fixed. The start up is located in New Haven where the service is the most developed. There… more
Got this in the mail today from friends in Cape Town and had to share...
Retail Therapy is not only about shopping, it is also about winning. But why hold an ordinary competition, when we can play games?
Since Monday 23 February, the Internet and the streets of… more
Rich Florida says it will. Citing research from a number of sources, he makes a case in the current Atlantic Monthly that can be summarized as follows:
+ The current crisis makes the end of a whole way of life in America.
+ The recession will accelerate the… more
According to FedEx Founder and CEO Fred Smith, the U.S. dependence on imported oil "represents the biggest single threat to our nation's economy and national security," after terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Smith is a member of the Energy Security Leadership Council, and today at the… more
In keeping with the theme of this week’s City Trends report, Instant Karma, here is an example of one company working to engage the public in community service. Starbucks, as part of its Shared Planet initiative, intends to motivate people to 1 million hours of community… more
PORTLAND CITY COUNCIL ANNOUNCES $503 MILLION-PLUS "PORTLAND JOB
CREATION AND ECONOMIC STIMULUS PACKAGE" TO FAST-TRACK AN ESTIMATED
4,985 PRIVATE SECTOR JOBS
Plan also boosts housing development, business assistance and worker
retraining programs
January 13, 2009
PORTLAND, ORE. — Portland City Council at City Hall today announced a
Trend Central reports that land sharing is growing in Canada and on the U.S. West Coast. Here's their report...
Why do cities continue to grow? And why, even in the electronic age, do they endure as wellsprings of intellectual life?
The Boston Globe believes it has found the answer. "Recent research by scientists at the Santa Fe Institute used a set of complex mathematical algorithms to demonstrate that… more
Opened last month, L.A Live, with its two concert halls, an ESPN Zone/broadcast studio, a bowling alley, movie theaters, ten restaurants, Grammy Museum, and condos, is being called a "content campus" by Business Week. Its developers call it an entertainment campus. The complex cost $2.5 billion and is… more
Many of the communities with the biggest job losses are those whose populations are shrinking. The worst possible investment would be in infrastructure that fuels sprawl... putting too few people on too much land. In fact, what most of these communities need is a massive investment in people in the… more
San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom released the following letter today to congressional leadership. The mayors are advocating for Congress not to reallocate funds intended for advanced transportation technology innovation and identify a different mechanism to finance efforts to improve the viability of the American… more
Richard Florida challenges the current approach to the global financial crisis. The problem, according to Richard, is that we are stuck in an industrial economy mindset. We still do not take seriously the idea-driven economy that is emerging.
"The first step," Richard wrote in his November 29 Globe and… more
Today's Washington Post has a good analysis of Frank Gehry's latest work, the Princeton Library and the addition to the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.
moreThree years into the recovery from Katrina, New Orleans' population has grown only modestly and resettlement has slowed to a trickle. Times-Picayune reporter Gordon Russell asks, Is it time to recognize New Orleans as a shrinking city?
Russell writes, "Embracing or even accepting a downsized city can be painful for… more
The Urbanophile blogs about the Midwest. Always provocative, today's post reviews the auto industry's options and what that means for Detroit. Definitely worth a read.
moreThe conversations at the Chicago Humanities Festival are always a pleasure. Last weekend, I heard Saskia Sassen (she of Global City fame), her husband and author Richard Sennett (power couple extraordinaire), Ricky Burdett of Urban Age and Philip Enquist, SOM partner in charge of Urban Design… more
Good column today in the NYT on Innovation is relevant to our upcoming meeting of the CEOs for Cities Creative City Network. Some thoughts:
++ Five core values are needed to entrench innovation in the corporate mind-set: questioning, risk-taking, openness, patience and trust. All five must be used together.
… moreCongrats to Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, organizer of Science Chicago. It's a collaboration of more than 100 public and private institutions that are producing what they call "the world's largest science celebration." Thousands of activities, tours, and hands-on learning are part of the celebration, which runs through… more
One of the best blogs on local economic development and politics continues to be Smart City Memphis, written by good friend and colleague Tom Jones. Today he's written another incisive post on the Aerotropolis strategy being pursued by a number of cities.
moreI've been in San Jose, capitol of Silicon Valley, since Tuesday night. This morning I spoke to a big group of downtown developers and tonight I'll be speaking to the Great Cities Speakers Series for 1st ACT Silicon Valley. Last night, I had dinner with Connie Martinez, founder of… more
Take a look at Pittsburgh's Citiwiki that invites citizens to offer their own ideas to develop an intelligent, easy-to-use transportation system that works for people of every stripe?
The goal of the Wiki is to harness the considerable intellectual firepower of the Pittsburgh region's thoughtful citizenry to help transform… more
With creative cities strategies increasingly gaining the attention of city leaders around the world, the Creative Cities Summit being hosted in Detroit October 12 – 15 will engage leaders with ideas on how to “rethink and redesign our cities for this age of innovation, knowledge and creativity”.
By… more
Jim Russell over at Cleveburgh Diaspora has a great post that gives solid examples of what shrinking mid-size cities can do to reinvigorate their appeal and their fate.
Buffalo is talking about becoming a national laboratory dedicated to… more
Ohio has announced a new economic development strategy that includes 33 new efforts designed to create jobs, improve productivity through innovation and grow the income of all Ohioans.
The two programs with high priority are called Ohio Means Home and Ohio Hubs of Innovation and Opportunity.
Ohio Means Home… more
SPUR, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, has a new study out on Clean Tech and the opportunities it presents to the Bay Area. With all the talk of green collar jobs as economic savior, it's good to see a clear analysis on the industry and its potential. … more
The City of Chicago has led the way in the U.S. on leasing public facilities to private interests in exchange for big money. The latest municipal asset to go on the privatization block is Midway Airport, expected to be a 99-year deal. Bids are due within a month, but given… more
The Inc. 500 of fast-growing businesses lists these metro areas with the most companies on the list:
Washington, DC, 39 companies (explained by having government contractors supplying a war)
New York, 31
Atlanta, 29
Chicago, 27
Los Angeles, 26
Dallas/San Francisco, 20
Boston, 18
Miami, 14
Philadelphia/Seattle, 13
Here's the… more
Once home to Wal-Mart in Wisconsin Rapids, a 120,000-square-foot big-box retail shell is now home to the Centralia Center for Senior Citizens. The town has revived and reinvented this empty space that threatened to leave a hole in the middle of their community and the neighboring shopping area.
… moreColleague Greg Zachary has found in Nairobi 600 young programmers, bloggers and Web enthusiasts who have turned themselves into Skunkworks, a group sharing ideas and encouraging new businesses to develop in response to the distinctive (narrow bandwidth) digital experience in that city.
“To be truly creative in… more
I agree with Business Week's Bruce Nussbaum's assessment of John McCain's announcement of a $300 million contest for a better car battery. Nussbaum lauds the idea and writes, "There are many ways to incentivize innovation. VC money. Government money. Corporate R&D. Labs (government and private). Serious prize money and… more
Presentations from panelists and speakers from last week's Strategy Session 2009 are available for download below. Simply click on the file you'd like to view. If you have questions or problems with any of the files, email Sheila Redick at sredick@ceosforcities.org.
Innovating Out of Scarcity
Chris Ronayne, University… more
GOOD Design Challenge Designers Announced
Three superstars from the world of design will join us in San Diego to present their solutions to three big civic challenges submitted by CEOs for Cities network partners. They are:
- Scott Stowell, winner of the 2008… more
CEOs for Cities Announces Next National Meeting
Strategy Session 2009: The Upside of Down
San Diego, CA, March 18-20
Hosted by CEOs for Cities and the University of California San Diego
Hard times force us to re-consider everything.
What are the opportunities for your city to innovate now… more
Old assumptions about cities are under assault, and new ones are in play, demonstrating that cities like Cleveland, where CEOs for Cities President and CEO delivered the keynote address for University Circle Inc.'s Annual Meeting, are not the problem. Cities are the solution. Read the full text of Coletta's remarks… more
Too many urban leaders still operate under old assumptions when it comes to planning for their cities' futures. In her speech to the Tennssessee Municipal League, CEOs for Cities president and CEO Carol Coletta, discusses what leaders must pay attention to today and how they must respond to new realities… more
What is your point of view on how your city will succeed economically? Do you have a theory of success? Is it stated or unstated? And are your decisions consistent with your beliefs about what it will take to succeed?
There has always been a little mystery associated with… more
Urban leaders seeking success in the new economy should stop paying attention to ubiquitous city rankings and start focusing their attentions on four dimensions of success: talent, innovation, connections and distinctiveness, according to a new report released by CEOs for Cities. CityVitals, developed by Portland-based economist Joseph Cortright in partnership… more