The Urban Institute has inaugurated a new reporting site –www.MetroTrends.org — to provide updates, keep tabs on how metropolitan America is faring.  The site provides up-to-date indicators of social and economic conditions and trends in metro areas nationwide, along with thoughtful commentary on what they mean for workers, families, businesses, and neighborhoods.

Here’s how the Institute describes its effort:

Our aim in launching MetroTrends is to fuel evidence-based debate about the nationwide impacts of recession and recovery, critical differences among metropolitan regions, and persistent or emerging disparities among population groups.

MetroTrends debuts with indicators from seven national data sources — the Decennial Census, American Community Survey, Current Population Survey, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, and BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics.

For each of these sources, we provide downloadable Excel files with selected indicators calculated for the nation, all metros nationwide, the top 100 metros pooled and stratified by region, and each of the top 100 metros. These downloadable files make it easy to access meaningful indicators, consistently defined over time and across metros.

In addition, MetroTrends kicks off with five expert commentaries, exploring interlocking trends in employment growth, mortgage lending and house prices, earnings and material hardship, immigration and diversity, and the well-being of children. These commentaries highlight cross-cutting challenges, dynamic conditions, and differences between metros in both current conditions and trends.

MetroTrends will be continuously updated with new data, additional datasets, and fresh commentary.  Over the next 3 months, you can expect to see: house price index data for the 4th quarter of 2009; Current Employment Statistics data through December 2009; monthly updates of LAUS data; indicators and commentary on health insurance coverage rates by metro area; and tables, graphics, and commentary focused on featured metros

The focus: how we can connect the world’s cities, their leaders and citizens, to share more effectively their hopes and goals, and the leading experiments that they’re forging?. The need’s growing more critical as the world’s urban population, which just last year passed the 50 percent mark, heads for 70 percent urban by 2050.

Our belief: the innovations are out there! But they are buried in specialists’ “silos.” And most serious: neither traditional “mainstream” media, nor web sites, nor the “bloggesphere” take them into much account. Conflicts, disasters, personalities, alarming incidences of corruption get the lion’s share of attention.

We feel the answer to this is good journalism – story telling about experiments in cities (whether official or citizen-initiated) based on verifiable facts, balance and credible resources. Pointing honestly to the problems and limitations of the new approaches. With engaging writing that focuses on people’s lives, actions taken and impacts they make.

We’re realistic: cities’ economies, political styles and cultures differ; rarely can an experiment in one city can simply be “replicated” elsewhere. But elements of new experiments may fit, and the ingenuity and spirit behind the efforts in one city may spark fresh new thought and innovation in another.

We have some modest support to develop this concept for a global audience from UN-Habitat and Cities Alliance. And we plan to have an operational plan and a website ready for feedback before the World Urban Forum in Rio next March.

Here is our broad concept right now –

A website with up to four major news stories a week, written by journalists across the developed and developing world. The stories will be short enough (800-1,000 words) for easy reading. They will be enhanced by a variety of “new media” elements to peak and keep reader interest and prompt other Internet, broadcast and newspaper pick-ups around the world. Expert observers will also be invited to add brief commentaries to the stories, placing the experiments in their global context. Stories will be accompanied by a variety of creative links to relevant web sites for anyone with a further depth of interest in the topic.

We are now meeting with a variety of key players we believe have some interest in how this concept can be perfected and advanced. But we need much broader feedback and thoughts before we figure out our options.

As readers of our Citiwire columns and an interest in our Citistates Group, please offer your insights on how we move forward – either as a comment added to this blog, or in an e-mail to Neal Peirce (npeirce@citistates.com) or Farley Peters (fpeters@citistates.com).

And many thanks!

Peirce Receiving Scroll of Honor Award

No sooner was Citistates Group Chairman Neal Peirce awarded the prestigious UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour at the World Habitat Day celebrations in Washington, D.C., in early October, than he was off to Barcelona to participate as a steering committee member of UN Habitat’s World Urban Campaign focused on sustainable urbanization.

En route, Peirce prepared his column on the importance of the United Nations World Habitat Day that had been held for the first time in the United States, noting both the event and the disturbing lack of U.S. media coverage. Arriving in Barcelona, he also toured the inventive 22@Barcelona project, a world-leading neighborhood revival project, interviewing the leader of the effort for his next column.

If that wasn’t enough, Neal along with Citistates colleague Farley Peters, networked with participants at the World Urban Campaign steering committee meeting to gauge interest in a new journalism project focused on desperately needed innovations and breakthroughs in cities across the world.

With the strong interest and support of Nicholas You at UN-Habitat, Kevin Milroy of Cities Alliance, Gary Lawrence (the ex-Seattle planning director now a senior executive with Arup), Gordon Feller of the Urban Age Institute and others, the Citistates Group is now moving forward to develop a business plan for the journalism project.

The World Urban Campaign’s major goal is a series of consciousness-raising steps to “elevate the importance accorded to sustainable urbanization in global, national and local policy and decision making,” looking forward to the Fifth World Urban Forum, focused on “The Right to the City- Bridging the Urban Divide,” scheduled to take place in Rio de Janeiro, March 22-26, 2010.

The major World Habitat Day opening ceremony will feature UN-Habitat Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka, but also Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin and top-level Obama administration officials including Melody Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. “President Obama,” Donovan notes, “has asked that we become engaged in the global discussion on our shared vision of making socially and environmentally sustainable urban communities.”

Ron Sims

In a separate October 5 event, at Howard University, the topic will be “Livable Communities” including White House Office of Urban Affairs Director Adolfo Carrion, HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims, Tibaijuka, and Deputy Washington, D.C. Mayor Valerie Santos Young.

On October 6, the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, in coordination with the Rockefeller Foundation, will host a major public discussion on creating sustainable global cities including metropolitan models for managing climate change. Participants will include Brookings’ Bruce Katz, Darren Walker (vice president for foundation initiatives for Rockefeller), Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels (president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors), and New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, joined by international metropolitan leaders.

On October 7, the International Housing Coalition (with support from the Aspen Institute and Habitat for Humanity), will host a major discussion on “Urbanization, Slums and U.S. Foreign Assistance.” And on October 8, there’ll be a major discussion on “Bridging the Urban Divide”, hosted by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars with assistance from the Rockefeller Foundation and CHF International. It’s advertised a start to a series on “The Road to Rio” — UN Habitat’s World Urban Forum 5 in Rio de Janeiro in March 2010.

Other Habitat Day events — one might well say “Habitat Week” events — include forums sponsored by the Urban Land Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, the American Planning Association, and Grassroots Women and Affordable Housing.

The overall theme of the Habitat events – “Planning Our Urban Future” – is intended to raise awareness of the need to improve urban planning to help the world’s cities deal with the major challenges the economic crisis, climate disruption, and alarming levels of urban poverty around the world.

Related – Peirce Among Scroll of Honour Awardees

Scroll of Honour award

Neal Peirce

Citistates chair Neal Peirce will be among the 11 organizations and individuals from around the world to receive UN Habitat’s Scroll of Honour Award — “considered the most significant prize in the field of human settlements” –at the October 5 event. His citation: “For a lifetime of journalism dedicated to reporting on cities for a better urban future.”

“John Parr was an uncommon American citizen.” Those were the words of that my fellow Alliance for Regional Stewardship board member and Citistates colleague, Doug Henton of Collaborative Economics, on the untimely passing of John Parr, a great, boundary-crossing national civic leader. John and his wife Sandy and daughter Chase tragically died in an auto accident in December 2007.

Parr’s lifetime mission was to recognize and motivate others in the arts of community building. He was one of America’s foremost counselors in the area of collaborative government, public/private partnerships, and regional governance. In that tradition, the Alliance for Regional Stewardship, which I am chairing this year, is pleased to announce the John Parr Award, to be bestowed annually by the Alliance for outstanding personal leadership and excellence in advancing regionalism and civic stewardship of metropolitan areas. John himself embodied that ideal through many activities, including his decades of inspirational and practical leadership of the Denver region and his contributions as a co-founder of the Alliance for Regional Stewardship.Your browser may not support display of this image.

John Parr

It is fitting that the inaugural John Parr Award is being presented to Neal Peirce and his Citistates Group co-founders Curt Johnson and Farley Peters. Neal, Curt and Farley shared a lifetime of civic collaboration with John Parr–through the Citistates Group, the National Civic League, and the Alliance for Regional Stewardship. Neal helped recruit John for the National Civic League presidency; John advised the Citistates team on their first “Peirce Report” (for the Phoenix region in 1987); Curtis worked closely with John on many projects including the Boundary Crossers project and book with the late John Gardner; and Farley sparked organization of the Citistates Group in 1995, with John as a charter Associate and speaker.

The John Parr Award will be made annually to recognize individuals who have dedicated their work and personal service, as well as social and political capital, to regional stewardship. The Award named in his honor is the only recognition that the Alliance bestows upon individuals. It was formally presented to Neal, Curt and Farley at the Alliance’s Annual Meeting and Regional Strategies Forum on Wednesday, July 29th in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The John Parr Award recognizes Neal Peirce as one of the most widely-recognized and widely-read writers in the nation about metropolitan regions–their political and economic dynamics, and their emerging national and global roles. His weekly column, syndicated through the Washington Post Writers Group since 1978, appears in over 50 newspapers. Time magazine has called Neal “the only national chronicler of grass-roots America.”

Sharing credit for accomplishments and humility are hallmarks of effective regional stewardship, yet no one can deny the role that individual leaders play in successful regional initiatives and advancing the civic stewardship of regions. Through their over 25 years of producing independent civic diagnostics of over 25 regions, Neal, Curt and Farley have had transformational impacts on the livability and economic competitiveness of regions throughout America.

In our own bi-state St. Louis region, a 1997 Peirce Report published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch proved to be a civic wakeup call for St. Louis, generating unified region-wide action which has stimulated some $5 billion in reinvestment in the region’s center city and launching the region as the BioBelt: The Center of Plant & Medical Sciences.

Citistates co-founders Neal Peirce, Farley Peters, and Curtis Johnson.

Neal, Curt, and Farley established the Citistates Group in 1995 with the goal of bringing an array of public policy, regional and economic development expertise together in a collaborative group that could be accessible to people trying to solve regional and community problems anywhere in the country. Since then, the Citistates Group has emerged as a nationally-recognized network of journalists, speakers, community and economic developers and advisers committed to competitive, equitable, and sustainable metropolitan regions. Their trademark “Citistates Reports” (formerly “Peirce Reports”) — independent assessments of a particular region’s major problems and opportunities — have been catalysts for change in metropolitan areas regions across the country. Their most recent book, Century of the City — No Time To Lose–reflects their experience covering the Bellagio Global Urban Summit sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation during the summer of 2007.

So what’s the tool to do all that?  To me it’s compelling: For global communication, to break old orders and forge new, the Internet represents an invention of breathtaking potential.  The world-wide Web opens the doors of idea exchange to a vast array of cities’ stakeholders.  Face-to-face meetings, though valuable, become less indispensable.  And literally everyone — official, unofficial, activist, academic, even we journalists — can join the conversations.

I’ve looked carefully at existing web sites of such organizations as City Mayors, Metropolis, Global Forum, Cities Alliance, ICLEI, Sister Cities and others, as well as sites of Urban Age, the Urban Age Institute, World Changing, the WorldWatch Institute, Ashoka and others.  Each has strong  features to recommend it, and provides a substantial research source.

But as a journalist, I think we also need the equivalent of a weekly or twice-a-week newspaper on the Internet that puts first focus on drawing a broad range of readers into stories – well-crafted, compelling stories of people, groups, alliances making breakthroughs.  Stories bright and accessible on the one hand.  But on the other hand providing links to the substantive factual backup often provided by the kind of existing city-oriented sites mentioned above.  And/or to universities, NGOs, and groups of urban entrepreneurs.

So why, I’m asking, couldn’t we have a global Internet news source focused broadly– across many topic areas — on city breakthroughs?  A Global Urban Commons perhaps?

The time’s especially appropriate – check, for example, articles by Gordon Feller and Tim Campbell on the web page Urban Age Magazine.

How would viewership be promoted?  To my mind, by the high quality and readability of items selected.

Looking for a starting core of interested, committed readers and correspondents, I’d look first to the 200 or so people who attended the Bellagio Global Urban Summit sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation during the summer of 2007.  But with the right partnerships and outreach, I believe thousands around the United States and the world could be recruited in relatively short order.

Just one caution: to succeed, such a venture would need both high journalistic standards and editorial freedom.  Those are the qualities that have always drawn people to quality newspapers and magazines.  For all the newness and instant global outreach the Internet offers, readers/viewers will always value — and more often act on — news sources that exude both quality and independence.

The special report/book by members of the Citistates team, Century of the City, has just been published by the Rockefeller Foundation and received recognition as one of the 10 best 2009 planning books from the respected Planetizen website.

Planetizen’s review:

Century of the City: No Time To Lose
by Neal R. Peirce and Curtis W. Johnson with Farley M. Peters
The Rockefeller Foundation, 447 Pages

This book is an impassioned call for action. Vibrant with images and littered with sidebars, Century of the City is magazine-readable but book-intelligent. It’s the result of a month-long colloquy hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation to identify and strategize on the challenges faced by rapidly urbanizing 21st century cities. The focus is on taking multidisciplinary approaches to the issues faced by cities, from the underserved slums of India to the most bustling economic powerhouses of the new China. Readers will come away convinced that even the most inefficient cities are incredibly important to the livelihood of both local citizens and global citizens, and that making them better is truly an international imperative.

Graphic images from Pentagram designers– click here.

Copies of the book are available, cost-free, to interested readers: email rockefeller@forbesamg.com and include ‘Century of the City’ in the Subject line of the email form. There is no charge for the books; however, the Rockefeller Foundation can offer only two copies per request.

Greater Quantities
For consideration of requests for multiple copies for pertinent conferences or other group purposes, please email details of your request to rderrick@rockfound.org and put ‘Century of the City multiple request‘ in the Subject line.

The series wass co-written by Curtis Johnson, our Citistates Associate Alex Marshall, and myself, with Farley Peters providing project coordination.  The University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s Urban Institute sponsored the new report, with a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. It was the first reprise, in 25 Citistates projects, of a full regional analysis from earlier years.  The original Charlotte release — then called a Peirce Report — was published not only in the Charlotte Observer and several other interested newspapers across the region in 1995.  The Observer was joined by several area papers in publishing the 2008 report, as it had been in 1995.

Here are links to the lead stories:

Editorial | Always eyeing the Next Big Thing
What’s a Citistates Report?
The leader in energy-saving? California

Interested readers and subscribers receive a once-a-week release with two columns–

(1) My regular column syndicated (since 1978) by the Washington Post Writers Group — and

(2) A new Citiwire.net column, authored by a different member of the Citistates Group (www.citistates.com) each week.

We hope readers will enjoy both.  The goal: enhanced journalism on the major changes in cities and regions now impacting American life.

Interested readers are invited to sign up through this link:

http://citiwire.net/subscribe/

© 2008 Washington Post Writers Group

‘DISRUPTING CLASS’ –
EXCITING HOPE FOR OUR SCHOOLS

By Neal Peirce

Surprise #1: America’s public schools are actually improving, average scores inching upward despite increased numbers of immigrant and often poorly-prepared children.

But we’re still losing — failing to inspire and fully prepare — roughly half our children. Most are bright and curious, and can be taught.  Just check how many, even from the poorest neighborhoods, are “digital natives.”  And all are needed in the new global economy.  Which leads to:

Surprise #2: The school system as we know it — 20 to 30 children in a classroom, sitting mostly passively through instruction, moving grade-to-grade with preset courses in rigid sequence — is toast.

Surprise #3: A fascinating “disruptive technology” has started to displace big chunks of schooling as we know it.  It’s called student-centric learning — individualized instruction, or better put, students progressing at their own pace, guided by computer programs tailored to their learning levels and personal learning strengths.  A process in which teachers instruct less, coach more.

Prediction: In 10 years, computer-based, student-centric learning will account for 50 percent of the “seat miles” in U.S. schools. By 2024, roughly 80 percent of courses will be taught this way.

So who says all this?  The answer is Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School’s famed expert on how “disruptive technologies” challenge and displace long-dominant industries. Together with my Citistates Group colleague, Curtis Johnson, and Michael B. Horn of the Innosight Institute, Christensen is a coauthor of a new book, “Disrupting Class,” just published by McGraw Hill.

When businesses fail, according to Christensen’s 20 years of research, it’s usually because they’re high proficiently at — but have great difficulty abandoning — the processes they’ve long excelled in.  So rivals develop radically new products, often inferior at first, but reaching previously unserved customers and improving over time, disrupting and eventually taking over the field.

Example: first transistor radios such as upstart Sony’s in the 1950s. The first were low quality but they were portable– so that kids could listen to rock music away from their parents.  Before long, the big old tube-based radios (and many of their manufacturers) were history.

A similar disruption is now hitting America’s public schools with their century-old standardized grade levels and assumption that courses can be put in rigid sequence, taught to all kids of a similar age at the same time and speed.  Like the industrialized factory on which they were modeled, the schools and their row-upon-row classrooms are rapidly being undermined by flexible new models designed to accommodate kids’ learning differences.

For evidence check the number of home-schooled children- up from 850,000 in 1999 to over 2 million today.  Add to that the rapid rise of charter schools with their experimental, more flexible formats.  And computer-based courses created by private firms.  The computer learning programs have skyrocketed from 45,000 in 2000 to roughly 1 million today, and they’re fast improving with enhanced video, audio and interactive elements, including formats to reach different types of learners.  More than 25 states now have supplementary virtual schools.

If there were ever a “disruptive” technology, this is it!  And it works precisely because our brains seem coded to learn in so many different ways — for some of us visually, others by taking notes, and with special intelligences ranging from linguistic to spatial to logical-mathematical.
Student-centric instruction  allows adjustments to the optimal learning capacities of school pupils.  Ironically, it’s a little bit like the one-room classrooms of the 1800s, in which teaching was customized by necessity as teachers spent most of their day going from student to student at different grade levels, providing personally tailored instruction and assignments.

But in 1900 only 50 percent of 5- to 19-year olds were enrolled in school. The new demand then was to educate everyone, at least prepare everyone for vocations in an industrializing economy.  Almost 60 years later came the Sputnik scare, obliging more focus on science and math.  And we keep asking schools for more .

And now, with No Child Left Behind, we’ve moved the goal posts again, decided for a 21st century economy it’s not enough for public schools to raise average scores, rather it’s to assure every child improves his or her test scores to qualify for a high skill- and knowledge-based employment.

The genius of “Disrupting Class” is the spotlight it throws on how we can tap children’s early enthusiasm for school by letting them learn in best-choice, individualized ways, the teacher’s role transformed from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side.”

Will teacher unions resist?  That’s the great fear experts raised to the book’s authors. But with looming teacher shortages as the baby boom generation retires, teachers may only have time for math and reading basics. The new wave of computer-based courses may, indeed, be arriving just in the nick of time.