No city can be number one at everything, but there is a huge variety of number one rankings for aspiring cities. An article on Atlantic Cities discusses the many cities competing to be the most bicycle friendly. The article suggests that instead of all competing for the same superlative, cities should try to succeed in categories that fit them best. CEOs for Cities' City Vitals recognize that there is no best overall city, so it ranks cities across over twenty different criteria. This allows each city to embrace its distinctive qualities, and to maximize its existing strengths in an effort to be globally competitive. The 2012 update to City Vitals will be presented at the CEOs for Cities Spring National Meeting.

CEOs for Cities and GOOD Magazine, thanks to funding from ArtPlace, hosted GOOD Ideas for Cities in Portland last week. The first of five brainstorming events in mid-sized cities in 2012, GOOD Ideas for Cities Portland called upon six teams of local creatives to tackle real urban challenges posed by non-profit and government groups. The challenges ranged from rethinking public space to promote healthier lifestyles to increasing access to fresh food while ensuring profitability for local farmers. Each design team came up with innovative solutions, including creating a community hub in a vacant high school and implementing parking meters fed by exercise, to the city’s most difficult issues. Click here to read more about the outcomes of the event in the Portland Mercury.  The next GOOD Ideas for Cities event will be held in St. Louis on March 8th. 

Denver is campaigning for walkability. An article in the New York Times enumerates the ways Denver is encouraging walking in order to improve public health. Proponents of walkability believe that Denver can be retrofitted through transit and pedestrian bridges to promote transportation alternatives (the goal is 15% of residents walking or cycling to work by 2020).  Advocates are encouraging attractions to cater to foot traffic since “it is the physical space of a city…that creates a pedestrian’s view of the world.” In addition to improving health outcomes, encouraging walkable communites also increases home values as outlined in CEOs for Cities’ Walking the Walk research. Promoting walkability will not only help Denver’s current residents lead healthier lives; it will also increase the city’s appeal as a livable community. 

Clevelander Andrew Samtoy has found a way to use social media to support local businesses.  In a CNN piece, Samtoy discusses the “Cash Mob” movement he started.  The premise is to gather local shoppers to go to a small business with the promise that each spends at least $20.  Recently 60 people gathered at Big Fun Toys in Lakewood, Ohio and spent $1,514 in approximately an hour.  Money stays in the community when it is spent at a local business.  In addition to the financial benefits, Cash Mobs help foster a community where you can meet and get to know your neighbors.

After a fantastic event in Portland, Oregon, and another event coming up in St. Louis, we're thrilled to announce the next GOOD Ideas for Cities events in Richmond, Virginia and Cincinnati, Ohio.

GOOD Ideas for Cities taps creative problem-solvers to tackle real urban challenges proposed by civic leaders and present their solutions at live events across the country. Thanks to our partnership with CEOs for Cities and a generous grant from ArtPlace, we're taking the program to five mid-sized cities in 2012. In Richmond, individuals can apply and will be placed on one of three teams. In Cincinnati, groups of any size can apply as a creative team, and six teams will be selected to participate.

Richmond, VirginiaTuesday, April 24 location TBAHosted by The i.e.* Initiative of the Greater Richmond Chamberand Capital Region Collaborative

Apply as an individual for GOOD Ideas for Cities Richmond

Application deadline: March 9Teams and event details will be announced here and at @IdeasforCitieson March 13.

Cincinnati, OhioWednesday, May 16 at the Contemporary Arts Center Hosted by The University of Cincinnati Niehoff Urban Studio and the Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation

Apply as a creative team for GOOD Ideas for Cities Cincinnati

Application deadline: March 19Teams and event details will be announced here and at @IdeasforCities on March 23.

For examples of how this works, watch a video of an event in San Francisco, view a growing list of all ideas presented since 2008, or read recaps of the events from the last three years.

We hope to see you at an upcoming GOOD Ideas for Cities event! If you want to bring the program to your city or have any questions about applying, email alissa[at]goodinc[dot]com or follow us at @IdeasforCities

The Grand Rapids Art Museum recently entered a three-year partnership with the Whitney Museum of American Art. The partnership will bring some of the country’s finest art exhibitions to Grand Rapids. The first exhibition, “Synapsis Shuffle,” has only been shown in two other cities, New York and Paris, before coming to Grand Rapids. Whitney Museum director Adam Weinberg is thrilled to collaborate with such a “vibrant cultural center in West Michigan.” The partnership further bolsters Grand Rapids’ attitude of creativity and innovation as demonstrated through other important arts and placemaking initiatives such as ArtPrize. 

On October 10-12, global leaders will convene in San Francisco for Meeting of the Minds. Each year’s Meeting is a premier leadership summit focused on the innovations that leaders in the built environment, infrastructure, transport, architecture, planning, finance and other key areas can use to grow sustainable cities. For two days, participants from across all sectors — public, NGO, and private — engage in lively discussions focused on “connecting the dots” linking buildings, energy and water resources, mobility, and finance.

Underpinning the 2012 program is a growing imperative: to make sense of the complex interplay between natural ecosystems and human infrastructure systems. The Meeting will look at how urban/regional decisions have become inextricably linked, and what elements of cross-sector partnership are critical for successful solutions.

Our Meeting will illuminate specific solutions and smart strategies that are making it possible to accelerate the emergence of sustainable cities around the globe — and create a smarter and more connected future for all. We’ll feature the innovators who are solving critical problems, especially those from organizations that are making smart investment choices. We’ll identify breakthrough policies and practices that are already enabling our institutions and systems to become smarter and more resilient.

Follow Meeting of the Minds on Twitter @meetoftheminds or visit the website to sign up for updates: http:://www.meetingoftheminds2012.org/

New geo-coded data from the Center for Neighborhood Technology on housing and transportation costs further affirms that living in dense, livable communities is economical.  According to an article on Atlantic Cities, from 2000-2009, housing and transportation costs increased at nearly twice the rate of incomes for the average American. Yet, for those in housing efficient locations, transportation costs only increased by half. Additionally, the data shows that when including transportation in the analysis of affordable housing, the percentage of neighborhoods considered “affordable” drops from 76 percent to 28 percent. When considering this data, which has far reaching policy implications, more expensive housing in city centers may actually be the more affordable option.

By investing in core economic development, Oklahoma City is building a better downtown. A new video from Smart Growth America highlights the groundbreaking urban work of Mayor Mick Cornett, a CEOs for Cities partner, and the city council. Mayor Cornett understands that "the quality of life in the suburbs is directly related to the intensity of the core of the city," so he is turning his once sprawling city around. By investing in transportation, schools, and amenities and pushing for smart growth strategies that prioritize health and job creation, Mayor Cornett is improving quality of life and quality of place in Oklahoma City. Mayor Cornett is energizing his constituents and his civic leaders to produce a thriving urban core through long-term investments. 

According to Census data released yesterday, the annual rate of growth in American cities and surrounding urban areas has now surpassed that of exurbs for the first time in the last twenty years. In fact, in 2010-2011, the growth rate of cities was .8 percent whereas the growth rate of the exurbs was a mere .4 percent. An article in the Washington Post suggests that this rise in urban growth is largely due to high gas prices and the millennial preference for cities. The growing number of residents in American cities confirms CEOs for Cities' Driven to the Brink, an analysis that shows that high gas prices and the cost of commuting from suburban areas is reshaping the American housing market. 

By investing in core economic development, Oklahoma City is building a better downtown. A new video from Smart Growth America highlights the groundbreaking urban work of Mayor Mick Cornett, a CEOs for Cities partner, and the city council. Mayor Cornett understands that "the quality of life in the suburbs is directly related to the intensity of the core of the city," so he is turning his once sprawling city around. By investing in transportation, schools, and amenities and pushing for smart growth strategies that prioritize health and job creation, Mayor Cornett is improving quality of life and quality of place in Oklahoma City. Mayor Cornett is energizing his constituents and his civic leaders to produce a thriving urban core through long-term investments. 

University Park Alliance recently celebrated their one year anniversary of integrating University of Akron with the downtown community surrounding it. The celebration hosted Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup polling organization and author of The Coming Jobs War, who discussed his prediction that cities, universities, and local leaders will need to work together to achieve the next economic breakthrough. An Akron Beacon Journal article details early studies conducted in Akron show a direct yearly total impact of $2.5 billion within the area by the major institutions in the redevelopment area. Henry Cisneros, former Secretary of HUD and current member of CEOs for Cities Board of Directors, “cited Akron and UPA's efforts as an example of building on a university and city's strenghts.”

CEOs for Cities is proud to announce the release of City Vitals 2.0, our groundbreaking report on benchmarking city and regional economic performance.  The entire report will be made available to our partnership network and will be available for purchase for non-members in the coming weeks.  You can see a preview of the report here.  If you are a member and would like to see City Vitals 2.0 now, please email Mark Ebner.

Bill Gates answered questions for CNN iReporters about education and the importance of college.  Gates says education is a great investment in yourself. Gates states that in addition to the economic benefits, a college education allows you to broaden your horizons while spending time with other smart and curious people. 

A great opportunity for cities competing for the Talent Dividend Prize:

The American Council on Education (ACE) has received funding from the Kresge, Lumina, and other foundations to support the development of an adult learning and attainment agenda.  These funds also allow ACE to provide short-term demonstration grants of up to $25,000 to institutions representing different regions and sectors with proven track records in helping diverse groups of adult learners successfully complete postsecondary credentials. The grants will recognize and continue scalable and sustainable practices in areas that impede completion, such as lack of access to advising, navigation tools, or clearly-articulated degree maps.

ACE is currently soliciting Letters of Intent from institutions interested in applying for a demonstration grant. Institutions invited to submit a full proposal will show targeted, integrated and effective approaches in one or more of the areas identified below, as well as demonstrated evidence of creating and implementing innovative and sustainable practices.

• Affordability: Implementing approaches to lowering costs
• Teaching and Learning: Opening up new sources to access education with attention to quality, outcomes and competencies
• Faculty Engagement: Increasing opportunities for professional development and further involvement in the adult learning agenda
• Prior Learning Assessments (PLA): Promoting their greater awareness, acceptance and application
• Advising and Navigation Tools: Creating tools for outreach to credential completion that assist in education and career re-entry, and transition
• External Support Services: Identifying and building community resources through collaborative efforts to boost persistence and retention
• Partnerships: Working across sectors to innovate and advance supportive policy and practices.

The Letter of Intent should be one to two pages in length on the institution's letterhead and provide an abstract of the proposed project, identifying which of the above area(s) the grantee will address. Projects must demonstrate innovative practices, such as articulated credits-to-credentials programs, applications of technologies that positively impact learning and attainment, or new strategies to reach out and attract adult learners back to a postsecondary education. (Note: These are simply examples and not intended to represent the full range of new and creative practices)

The Letter of Intent is due no later than Friday, June 15, 2012. Successful applicants will receive an invitation to submit a full proposal by Friday, June 22 and full proposals will be due Monday, July 16, 2012. ACE will announce the award winners in early August, launching program activities in September that will culminate in March 2013.

Please send Letters of Intent to the attention of Venita Cooper via email at demonstrationgrants@acenet.edu or fax to Dr. Robert Kanoy at (202) 833-5696.

If you have any questions or need additional information, please contact Dr. Kanoy at bkanoy@acenet.edu

Reflecting trends outlined in the CEOs for Cities City Vitals 2.0 report, new research is beginning to show the relationship between key signs of metropolitan health. According to the Center for Disease Control, connected cities—those that create more expansive alternative transportation networks that incorporate walking, biking, and public transit—have lower rates of obesity, even when controlling for income. Governing Magazine, using data from a recent CDC report, explains, “[C]ommunities where more residents walk or bike to work boast significantly healthier weights.” The CDC’s interactive tool also shows how population density within a state is connected to obesity rates, with less dense areas being more affected by obesity.

These findings have led the CDC to make a variety of transportation policy recommendations, including reducing car use, increasing bike infrastructure, and promoting Safe Routes to School programs. The CDC’s suggestions mirror many of the same ideas that make up the foundation of the Green Dividend, a CEOs for Cities research series that calculates the amount of money cities could save by reducing the number of miles individuals drive each day. Environmentally-conscious policy changes and more comprehensive transportation systems could also save cities money in healthcare costs, increase productivity, and reduce crime, all while making cities more attractive to businesses and families.

In order to maximize these “piggybacking” benefits from transportation initiatives, cities like Portland, Oregon have turned to the power of technology. The recently adopted “Portland Plan,” which, among other things, outlines the city’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions by forty percent by 2030, may have unintended benefits, according to IBM’s new System Dynamics for Smarter Cities software. Slashdot reports, “After running the model, planners discovered a positive feedback loop: More walking and biking would lead to lower obesity rates for Portlanders.” City planners looking to pitch green initiatives could, consequently, add an array of health benefits to their proposals, giving their plans more efficiency and a greater range of benchmarks by which their success could be measured.

Faced with a deluge of literature outlining the many benefits of living in environmentally friendly areas, innovative cities are finding new ways to improve livability and to make their residents happier while reaping the economic and environmental benefits of going green. How is your city capitalizing on these connections?

What makes Memphis great?

Memphis is a city with Soul. You can feel her Soul through her people, their kindness, their spirit of giving, their energy. Memphis is a great city because within its Soul lies the opportunity to make a difference. Memphis is still evolving. In a city the size of Memphis, anyone can be as engaged as he or she wants to be. I have a list somewhere of all the great things about Memphis. It’s a lengthy list, from the blues on Beale to the hum of the FedEx hub in the middle of the night. Better than rattle off what’s in between, come to Memphis and see for yourself. Let us show you what makes Memphis great. And when you’re headed home, you can take that list with you, but you’ll have to leave our Soul behind. So accept this as my invitation for you to come for a visit. Who knows? You just might come on back and try to claim a piece of our Soul for yourself.

What are your grandest ambitions for Memphis?

I want Memphis to be the kind of city in which t the next generation wants to live and lead into the future. My hope is to connect young and ambitious Memphians with older Memphians – those who already have worked hard to build a great city. It is an ever-evolving task to connect our young citizens with my generation so they can build upon our city’s traditional values of trust, understanding and ownership, while encouraging the youngest among us to create their own vision for their future. Everyone in every community has likes and dislikes about their community – things they hope will never change and things they wish could be changed tomorrow.  Memphis’s challenge is to accelerate the process of holding on to our strengths and embracing change, all the while making sure that the process is inclusive, transformative and rooted in the community.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

I can’t say that I have a single ‘biggest’ achievement. However, I am continually motivated by the collective impact of what I have done in the past, as well as what I plan to do today and tomorrow. I see myself as a connector. In other words, I enjoy connecting people to people, people to information, people to our community. I don’t see achievement in terms of a single program or project that has been highly successful. Rather, all achievements together result in the legacy of what I work to accomplish. Hopefully, as a ‘connector,’ I have multiplied individual achievements into success.  That also means I may never know my “biggest” achievement.  I may never know how one of my connections caused the big one to happen for someone else.  I’m okay with that. 

Why do you do the great work for Memphis that you do? 

My answer is simple: I love Memphis. And I work hard every day to help make Memphis a better city. And while I think Memphis already is great, we can’t just rest on the good things about us. We must always try to improve on what we have. Lucky for me that loving Memphis and working to make it better is my full-time job and my full-time passion.

What is important to the future of cities?

Connectedness, Innovation, Talent and Distinctiveness.  Seems like CEOS for Cities has framed this up nicely and I can’t think of any way to improve on that.  Of course, the challenge is determining what that means for your respective city – and that is why we need the connectedness at a national level through this organization.  We can and should learn from each other and together we can make sure that cities are recognized for the increasingly important role they play in America and around the world.  Bottom line – what is important to the future of cities is that we make sure everyone understands why cities are important and how to focus on the right things to make them thrive.

Yesterday, Tuesday June 19th, The Institute for a Competitive Workforce (ICW), held an event releasing the 3rd edition of its Leaders & Laggards series, A State-by-State Report Card on Public Postsecondary Education. The report analyzes the performance of different state public higher education systems and assigns letter grades to each state according to their outcome, identifying the best performers and those who have fallen behind. In addition to highlighting successful state practices, the report includes recommendations for what states performing poorly can do to improve select performance areas.
   The Leaders & Laggards Report grades states on:
      1. Student Access & Success
      2. Efficiency & Cost-Effectiveness
      3. Meeting Labor Market Demand
      4. Transparency & Accountability
      5. Policy Environment
      6. Innovation
The overall objective of the report is to “arm readers with information that gives them a clear-eyed view of how state systems of higher education compare with one another on a host of outcome, efficiency, and policy measures”.

Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce estimated that “by 2018 more than 60% of American jobs will require some form of postsecondary education”. While 70% of U.S. high school graduates now continue on to some form of postsecondary education- a seemingly encouraging statistic- as identified in the Leaders & Laggards report, “fewer than half of those who enroll finish a degree or certificate within six years”. More specifically, Andrew P. Kelly, Research Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, stated that, “the national median for four-year degree completion is just above 40%...[and] for two-year degree completion is just above 20%”. In her welcome remarks at yesterday’s report launch, Margaret Spellings, President of the U.S. Forum on Policy Innovation and Senior Advisor for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, shared that there are an estimated, “3.5 million unfilled jobs in the U.S. due to lack of higher education credentials, despite the 8.2% unemployment rate”.

In the report’s introduction, the ICW calls for a shift “away from a heavy focus on inputs such as spending and toward and emphasis on student outcomes, return on public investments, and transparency”. The report explains that few states have developed adequate ways to assess the quality of their higher education programs, and that, “without these measures of quality, states will be hard-pressed to ensure that their investments in postsecondary education are paying off.” Grover “Russ” Whitehurst, Director of Brookings Institution’s Brown Center on Education Policy, claims that student outcomes are also vitally important for the families of prospective students to know. At yesterday’s event, Whitehurst explained, “short of buying a home, and investment in higher education is the biggest investment a family will make”.

While it seems quite apparent that there is a need for increased data and analysis on the performance of postsecondary education institutions, there is controversy over whether the assignment of letter grades is the most affective and appropriate method of examination. The ICW explains their hope that, “state leaders can use [the report’s] information to craft a reform agenda that best fits their needs and aspirations”. Is this possible?

The ICW also explains that, “in order to fairly compare one state’s performance to another’s, all data used in the report had to be nationally collected or reported, using normalized definitions for each metric across institutions and states”. Is this enough? Is it fair to grade states side-by-side when there are so many differences in state demographics that effect outcomes?

According to Joe Cortright, CEOs for Cities Senior Advisor, a defining feature of City Vitals 2.0, a CEO’s for Cities report on benchmarking city and regional economic performance, is that there is no rank indicator. Cortright explains that values are not about praising or criticizing cities for their current state, but rather evaluating a city’s “potential to make change over time”. Is this a more effective grading metric? Would it be more worthwhile for colleges and families to know how state systems of higher education compare with one another or the potential for a state’s system of higher education to change over time? Would a failing grade catalyze state prioritization of postsecondary degree attainment or would the evaluation of a state’s potential to change over time serve as a more encouraging motivator?

Are the grading specifics even worth harping over? Maybe the most valuable take-away from the new “Leaders & Laggards” report is that it is becoming increasingly important for adults to attain higher education degrees in order to be successful in the workforce, but students are failing to complete their degrees and states are failing to investigate degree completion.

Hopefully the release of the ICW’s “Leaders & Laggards” report will stimulate conversations about education attainment, talent development, and states’ Talent Dividends, the monetary value to states of increasing college attainment rates by one percentage point. While an outcomes-based letter grade system may not be a perfectly accurate grading method due to inconsistencies between state demographics, maybe a state report card is exactly what is needed to reinvigorate the conversation of adult higher education and talent dividends.

Yesterday morning, June 26, 2012, McKinsey on Society hosted a live webinar, titled “Jobs for the Young and Restless”, discussing the topic of youth unemployment and global labor markets. The webinar was moderated by Peter Humi, Former Bureau Chief of CNN Paris, and featured a panel composed of: Richard Dobbs, Director of McKinsey Global Institute, Khadiga Fahmy, Program Manager of IFC’s Middle East and North Africa Division, and Henri-Bernard Solignac-Lecomte, Senior Economist for OECD.

Dobbs began the webinar with the statistic that globally, we’re short 90 million workers. Dobbs explained that the skills gap is leading to a more disparate economy as, “the unskilled are growing up poorer and the skilled richer”. Dobbs shared the encouraging statistic that, “1.1 billion jobs created in the last 30 years have taken 600 million people out of poverty”, but later explained that despite the growing workforce, due to a lack of proper degree attainment, McKinsey predicts a shortage of 38-40 million college-educated workers by 2020.

The notion that adults are entering the workforce without the proper skills and qualifications quickly became one of the main themes of the webinar.

According to Khadiga Fahmy, who added insight about education and the workforce in the Arab world, the skills young adults are getting are not relevant to the workforce. Fahmy shared the statistics that, most people starting jobs in Arab countries need on average 12 months of training, a staggering outlier from the 3-month international average. According to Fahmy, 85 million jobs need to be created in Arab countries in order for the employment rate to reach international level of 52%. However, the problem still remains that employers can’t find people qualified to fulfill current job vacancies. This is because it’s the high skilled jobs that need to be filled, but the education system is not producing graduates with the adequate skill set to do those jobs.

One initiative that is working to give young adults the qualifications necessary to complete these high skilled jobs is the “Education for Employment” Foundation.  E4E seeks to “create job opportunities for unemployed youth in the Middle East and North Africa by providing world-class professional and technical training that leads directly to career-building jobs”.

Henri-Bernard Solignac-Lecomte added his perspective about education and workforce-readiness on the African continent. Similar to the notions that Dobbs shared, Solignac-Lecomte explained how, “the 60 million jobs that have been created on the African continent doesn’t compare to 100 million people seeking the jobs”. Also, echoing the sentiments shared by Fahmy, Solignac-Lecomte stated that, “Africa-similar to Arab world- sees a mismatch between courses offered and skills needed”.

These international trends are also problems in the States. In a perspective piece, Patty Stonesifer, Chair of the White House Council for Community Solutions, sums up the problem by saying: “Too many American students leave school unprepared for college or work. And it’s not just those who fail to graduate. The disconnect between the classroom and the workplace leaves many high school graduates—and even many college graduates—unprepared to find a career and excel in it.”

From here we must ask ourselves: How do we ensure that young adults are receiving the proper credentials needed to succeed in the workforce? And beyond that: How do we ensure that through pursuit of these degrees, students are obtaining the proper skill sets and knowledge that are applicable in the workforce?

CEOs for Cities is working to explore questions like these with the Talent Dividend and the Skills Dividend, which links the Talent Dividend to workforce development/labor outcomes.

What makes Richmond great?

The diversity of businesses, attractions, neighborhoods and people, as well as a newfound energy, makes Richmond a great place to live. At one time, the Region’s tagline was “Easy to Love,” and anyone who spends time here can immediately see why. You can be out to dinner on a Saturday night and find yourself in company with corporate leaders, small business owners and university professors alike. And that restaurant will most likely be sporting a mural by a local artist along its historic brick walls.

What are your grandest ambitions for Richmond?

To expand its legacy to include a broader story than just four years in the late 19th century and communicate to the world the quality of jobs, housing and life that we have here. We at the Chamber already know how committed the local business and non-profit communities are to the bright future of this city. Their buy-in gives me tremendous confidence that our shared goals can become realities.

What do you consider your greatest achievement? 

Establishing the Capital Region Collaborative has been one of the most rewarding projects in my short time in Richmond thus far. The director of the Richmond Region Planning District Commission Bob Crum and I interviewed and surveyed more than 7,000 residents and from that compiled a list of seven priority areas that are key to the Region’s future. Our next phase – of coalescing resources to tackle these priority areas -  is about to begin. Stay tuned!

Why do you do the great work for Richmond that you do?   

Recently, the Greater Richmond Chamber held the Region’s first ever Start-Up Competition as part of our i.e.* initiative to help entrepreneurs turn their ideas into realities. The number of contestants – 143 – far exceeded our expectations, and witnessing their enthusiasm and dedication along the way really captured for me the real reason why we do what we do here at the Chamber: we help the community realize its fullest potential. And the fact that our Start-Up Competition saw such fantastic support from some of our lead investors, including a $10,000 cash prize donated by accounting firm Cherry, Bekaert & Holland, indicates that businesses at all levels support local entrepreneurism here in Richmond. 

What is important to the future of cities?

People, vibrancy, flexibility, team work.