Rob Walton (Walton Family Foundation/Wal-Mart) and Peter Seligman (Conservation International) are at the Aspen Ideas Festival offering insights on scaling sustainability.  These lessons (some stated, some embellished from their remarks) seem to apply to urban leaders working to get smart ideas for next generation cities to a tipping point:

1. …

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…

I'll be joining city managers and planners from the world’s leading cities including Seoul, Lyon, Paris, Mumbai, Beijing, Jeddah, Riyadh and San Francisco in Abu Dhabi next month to debate and determine the blueprint for successful urban living over the next 10 to 100 years.

Global City 2009 will be…

In just a few minutes, I'm leaving to talk about the next generation of great American cities and the challenges they face.

I am asking the people listening to do the following...

"I want you to send me an email in the next 24 hours and tell me what you…