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Atlanta Brain Trust
On April 12th, CEOs for Cities, Mayor Kasim Reed and the City of Atlanta, Parkmobile and McKenna, Long and Aldridge hosted the Atlanta Brain Trust, a robust discussion among urban leaders on the trends shaping the future of cities, how Atlanta is likely to fare in light of these trends, and if the local civic agenda needs to shift in response to these trends.
We talked about Atlanta’s success in attracting talented workers and what civic and business leaders are doing to keep them. We discussed the importance of placemaking investments that attach talented people to cities, and finally, we asked how Atlantans can put their talent to work in high wage jobs and innovative fields.
Outcomes of the Brain Trust will be compiled and put to use for the development of a national policy agenda and planned publications related to the US Initiative, including a book.
Questions? Contact Julia Klaiber at 202-525-5627.
Oklahoma City Brain Trust
On March 23, 2011, CEOs for Cities, the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber and Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett hosted the Oklahoma City Brain Trust, a robust discussion among local urban leaders about what city success looks like globally and how it can be achieved locally. Participants responded to trends shaping the future of cities and how Oklahoma City is likely to fare in light of them. The final report includes action items for how the local civic agenda needs to shift in response to these trends.
Further, we explored what it means to be a world class city — one of those special places we’ve lived in or traveled to that have left indelible imprints on our experiences and memories. We named them, identified the reasons why they are special and asked ourselves what it would take for Oklahoma City to be listed among them.
Outcomes of the Brain Trust are included in the final report you can download from this page. They will also be compiled and put to use for the development of a national policy agenda and planned publications related to the US Initiative, including a book made possible with support from The Rockefeller Foundation.
Questions? Contact Julia Klaiber at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
The Opportunity Challenge
The places that thrive today are those with the highest velocity of ideas and the highest density of talented people. But developing talent in the fullest sense is not just the result of schools or early childhood education or workforce development. It is also the result of intense practice with the prospect of failure, taking risks, trying new things, putting one’s talent to work in new and unfamiliar settings, the provision of opportunity, a whole web of public amenities such as libraries and community services, and the culture of a place.
What would it look like if your community communicated the value of learning every day? How can a city become a place where everyone is the CEO of his or her own career and where one’s “portfolio of work” is made up of multiple sources, some paid, some unpaid, that evolves and adapts throughout life to changing circumstances? What would this mean to the ability for all people to climb the economic ladder?
On February 16-18, 2011, CEOs for Cities and Mayor AC Wharton asked urban leaders in Memphis to imagine the future of opportunity as expressed in the Declaration of Interdependence: We can develop all of our talent and put all of our talent to work.
Staged over 2.5 days in Memphis, the Opportunity Challenge brought together a team of national experts with local city and civic decision makers and citizens to develop a compelling vision and practical strategies to determine what it takes to develop Memphians’ talent to the fullest extent. The key leadership team included:
National Expert Team
Joe Cortright, Principal, Impresa Consulting
Laurel Dukehart, President, Gateway to College National Network
Peter Smith, Senior Vice President of Academic Strategies and Development, Kaplan Higher Education
Katherine van Jan, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Derring-Do Design
Suzanne Walsh, Senior Program Officer, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Veronica White, Executive Director, Center for Economic Opportunity
Local Stakeholders
Bob Bennett, Vice President of Human Resources, FedEx
Ruby Bright, President & CEO, Women’s Foundation for Greater Memphis
Dr. Richard Irwin, Associate Dean, University College, University of Memphis
Eric Mathews, Co-Founder, LaunchMemphis and Seed Hatchery
Demetri Patikas, Senior Advisor to the President, Duncan Williams Inc.
Dr. Douglas Scarboro, Executive Director, Office of Talent and Human Capital, City of Memphis
Gretchen Wollert McLennon, Program Officer, The Hyde Family Foundations
In addition to producing big ideas and quick-start strategies for Memphis, results of the Opportunity Challenge will be reported nationally as part of a book, generously underwritten by The Rockefeller Foundation, as well as a promotional tour and national policy platform.
Questions? Contact Julia Klaiber at 202-525-5627.
Miami Brain Trust
Miami has a long legacy of reinvention. It is a place where citizens of many cultures have been able to set aside their fears and come together to create a better future for themselves and each other. And so on February 3, 2011, CEOs for Cities and Florida International University will host RE:VISION MIAMI, an exclusive cross-sector convening of local thinkers, dreamers and doers whose collective and catalytic leadership is transforming Miami in the 21st century.
The theme will be optimism, and the challenge will be to harness that optimism to achieve big ambitions for Miami set forth in the US Initiative:
• Opportunity: We can develop all of our talents and put them to use.
• Livability: We can have access to beauty, in the form of art, good design and nature every day.
• Connectivity: We can meet our daily needs without owning a car.
• Community: We can engage in a robust public life.
A short video overview on the ambitions of the US Initiative can be viewed here.
The Miami Brain Trust is by invitation only and will take place at the spectacular, Frank Gehry-designed New World Symphony building.
Results of the Miami Brain Trust will be published nationally in a book generously underwritten by The Rockefeller Foundation and promoted on a national tour in 2012.
Questions? Contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) at 202-525-5627.
The Connectivity Challenge
- About the Connectivity Challenge
- Connectivity Challenge Team
- Connectivity Challenge Final Report
- Presentation: Chicago Regional Transportation Authority
- Presentation: Active Transportation Alliance
- Presentation: Neighborhood Capital Institute
- Presentation: Chicago Department of Transportation
- Presentation: Chicago Transit Authority
- Presentation: Chicago Public Building Commission
- Presentation: Civic Consulting Alliance
Seventy years ago GM’s Futurama generated a compelling vision for a new American ideal: a spacious, car-centered good life. That ideal dominated public policy for 50 years, literally paving the way for Americans to spread out by increasing homebuyers’ access to credit and supporting development patterns that relied on cheap land and cheap gas.
We are beginning to see that while sprawling suburbanization made sense for a time, Americans have a growing appetite for urban living. Planners now project that 86% of the growth in new households will be single people or couples without children at home – and neither group wants to live in remote suburbs or in houses surrounded by big lawns. Four cars in every garage may have once been the dream of Americans, but it’s now clear that not only is that time-consuming and isolating; not only does it undermine the natural advantages of cities, but it is also expensive.
A key advantage of cities is their intrinsic sustainability: they require less car travel, use less energy and generate fewer emissions per capita than more sprawling areas. Alternative forms of transportation (transit, walking and cycling) enable city-dwellers to recapture income otherwise spent on cars and gasoline – money that quickly leaves the local economy – and redistribute it in their local economies.
Imagine a community taking up the challenge to ensure its citizens are able to meet their daily needs without owning a car. What would that look like? What would be an effective quick start strategy? Where are the early wins to create momentum? And how would a community know when it is succeeding?
On December 8-10, 2010, CEOs for Cities and a team of international connectivity experts led by Copenhagen’s Jan Gehl worked over 2.5 days in Chicago with Chicago transit stakeholders to imagine the future of connectivity as expressed in the Declaration of Interdependence: We can meet our daily needs without owning a car.
The resulting Big Ideas and quick-start strategies are available in the Connectivity Challenge Final Report and will also be reported nationally as part of a book, generously underwritten by The Rockefeller Foundation.
Questions? Contact Julia Klaiber at 202-525-5627.
The Community Challenge
On November 10-11, 2010, experts from the fields of citizen engagement, public policy activism, volunteerism, technology, government and citizen-led civic production came together in Detroit for the Community Challenge. Over 36 hours, they shared knowledge to advance a new understanding of what a contemporary robust public life looks like, what attracts people to it, what it ought to deliver (its purpose and its value to individuals and to communities), how it should be evaluated and how we get more of it.
Because attachment to community underpins the rationale for participation in public life, the framing of the dialogue reflected the primary drivers of community attachment identified by the Knight Foundation Soul of the Community poll—social offerings, openness and aesthetics. In short, robust public life is the bridge between individuals and their community, and between communities and the institutions that serve them. Robust public life provides the means for sustaining ongoing social innovation and change. Through robust public life, we can mobilize the resources and relationships needed to make life in cities better for everyone.
Participants developed a set of big ideas to foster a robust public life that increase attachment by amplifying community attachment drivers. These ideas will be used to inform demonstration projects that drive community attachment over the next 18-36 months. Both the Community Challenge and the demonstration projects have been made possible by generous support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Questions? Contact Julia Klaiber at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 202-525-5627.
Urban Leaders Summit 2010
The Urban Leaders Summit is a national forum CEOs for Cities’ partnership network that offers cutting-edge ideas, peer-to-peer learning and quick-start action strategies to advance the next generation of great American cities. On November 8-9, 2010, CEOs for Cities will host The Good Life Transformed: When Times Call for Radical Change at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, a laboratory of radical, civic change.
This provocative and timely discussion of the critical issues facing cities today is only open to the CEOs for Cities partnership network. Not a partner? Become one. Contact Julia Klaiber at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 202.525.5627.
The Livability Challenge
- About the Livability Challenge
- Livability Challenge Summary Report
- Final Presentation to Indianapolis Stakeholders
- Adrian Benepe, NYC Dept of Parks & Recreation
- Lily Yeh, Barefoot Artists
- Don Carter, Remaking Cities Institute
- Deborah Marton, Design Trust for Public Space
- Will Rogers, The Trust for Public Land
- David Rubin, OLIN
- Local Stakeholder Presentation
Although it has not always been easy to measure the impact of such quality of life amenities as parks, art and first-rate architecture and public places, it is increasingly clear that investments in these things have powerful positive effects on cities and their citizens.
In addition to providing places of respite and recreation, green space has positive, measurable impacts on adjacent property values. The sales premium on property within 100 feet of a park of any size is 24 percent. Green space also enhances storm water management and keeps cities cooler. When arts are ever-present, they encourage participation, which leads to a flywheel of other positive spin-offs, including more creative people who then attract more creative people, making places more interesting and diverse. And the best architecture and design creates places that people love, places they want to live in, visit and come back to.
“Inspiring places” are magnets for people, becoming cities that engage their citizens more powerfully. Cities are increasingly being judged by their “quality of place,” as Americans choose the places they want to live based, in part, on their physical appeal and their vibrancy.
Investing in beauty, nature and art are among the most significant demonstrations a city can make about its distinctiveness – the unique and often intangible characteristics of a place that comprise its one truly defensible competitive advantage over others. These distinctions build affinity among a city’s residents. And communities with the greatest affinity felt by citizens are those communities that are most successful and experience the highest economic growth.
On October 11-13, 2010, CEOs for Cities and the Central Indiana Community Foundation hosted the Livability Challenge in Indianapolis, home of the spectacular Indianapolis Cultural Trail. Working with a team of national livability experts led by Will Rogers, president of the Trust for Public Land, the Livability Challenge explored the future of livability as expressed in the Declaration of Interdependence: We can enjoy beauty, nature and art every day.
In addition to producing big ideas and quick-start strategies for Indianapolis, results of the Livability Challenge will be reported nationally as part of a book, generously underwritten by The Rockefeller Foundation, as well as a promotional tour and national policy platform.
Questions? Contact Julia Klaiber at 202-525-5627.
Urban Next Summit
Will you be among the select group of emerging leaders who influence the next American Dream?
The American identity is at a tipping point, moving from what some have called an excess of go-it-alone toward an optimistic culture of do-it-together. This shift is being driven by a new class of urban activists who see a different future for America’s cities, powered by imagination, collective action and technology—people who are unwilling to wait for permission to get things done. With their zeal for change and their ability to bring people together to make important things happen, they are at the forefront of defining how people will live life in cities in the first half of this century.
CEOs for Cities and SPUR are convening a select group of these innovators and community change agents September 20-21 in San Francisco. If this sounds like a gathering that won’t be complete without you, contact Natalie Campbell at 312-553-5157. The Urban Next Summit is free to those with important experience to share and ideas to contribute. Applications are due August 13, 2010.
San Jose Brain Trust
As part of the US Initiative, CEOs for Cities will convene urban leaders in more than a dozen major American cities to develop a set of new ambitions for life in cities and bold ideas for how they will be achieved.
On Thursday, September 16, CEOs for Cities, the City of San Jose and 1st ACT Silicon Valley will host the San Jose Brain Trust, a dialogue among leading local thinkers, artists and curators for a discussion about the role of art and design in creating the next generation of American cities. The event, which is by invitation only, will take place at the San Jose Museum of Art in conjunction with the 01SJ Biennial. Results will be reported nationally as part of a book, generously underwritten by The Rockefeller Foundation, as well as a promotional tour and national policy platform.
Questions? Contact Julia Klaiber at 202-525-5627.
