It was fifty years ago that President Kennedy famously launched the Peace Corps, bringing international volunteerism to its true prominence in this country. Today, a diverse set of international volunteer efforts are supported by federal, state and local governments and through partnerships with NGOs. These efforts have been particularly effective at engaging two segments of our population: students or recent graduates; and retirees or those pursuing second careers.

But the segment that holds perhaps the greatest promise for global development has – for the most part – been underserved. We’re referring to mid-career employees at corporations: particularly large, globally-integrated enterprises. These corporate employees have what is most required for a successful international service engagement: cutting edge skills, deep expertise and relevant strategic knowhow.

Why has this resource largely gone untapped? Because a clear connection to business strategy and return on investment has been made in only a few cases.

There exists a triple benefit from corporate-sponsored international volunteerism. Local communities receive premier business and consulting services. Employees enrich their skill sets by working in international markets and leadership experience from working with diverse teams of colleagues and local partners. And corporations gain experienced leaders, insights into new markets, and brand and reputation enhancement that can ultimately create new global business opportunities.

IBM’s Corporate Service Corps (CSC) was developed with those benefits in mind. Often referred to as a “corporate peace corps,” CSC provides IBM employees with unique opportunities to develop and explore their roles as global citizens. Through one month deployments, IBM’s top talent works in teams of roughly 12 to provide in-depth business and IT consulting support to local entrepreneurs and small businesses, nonprofit organizations, educational institutions and governmental agencies. Already in its third year, Corporate Service Corps has deployed 700 IBM employees from 47 countries on 70 teams to 14 countries including China, Nigeria, Romania, Poland and Vietnam. The result is a leadership development program that has made strides in answering the economic, social and environmental sustainability challenges faced by many emerging markets.

We’re pleased to see that other organizations are adopting similar programs. In fact, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has announced a partnership with IBM to accelerate international volunteerism by leveraging the Corporate Service Corps model. USAID and IBM are creating an Alliance for International Corporate Volunteerism Program to help smaller companies and organizations eager to implement their own corporate peace corps, but lacking the resources and scale to do so.

As we look to help expand international service opportunities, there are several best practices to share based on IBM’s experience.

• In the case of executives, keep the duration of the projects relatively short. This allows for better access to a company’s top talent because rather than interrupting a career, you are asking someone to make service an integral part of it.
• Continue the relationship. While the duration of an individual’s participation may be short, your involvement with the region should be long-term and sustainable. It is not a vendor relationship; it is a partnership.
• Identify the right projects. The most successful development efforts take time and effort to scope out and plan. Partner with NGOs early and often to find the best local opportunities for growth and impact.
• Carefully mix and match skills when forming a team of service participants. This allows them to deliver results quickly and build capacity on the local level.
• Take advantage of technology. Technology can be a powerful tool to help train and prepare service participants. Technology like social networking can also help build a community of service participants and allow them to share their experiences.

The world has changed significantly over the last 50 years. Corporate-sponsored international volunteerism is now building upon the government’s original architecture of the Peace Corps. The same conditions and capabilities that have made the world “flat”, allowing its systems to become smarter, are also opening up new paths for citizen diplomacy. Those seeking out international volunteer service opportunities are no longer limited to government guidance and other official avenues into long-term engagements.

In an interconnected world, citizens have the choice of participating more directly in service through short-term assignments that will not disrupt their careers but enrich them. And it is these mid-career volunteers who possess the skills to make such assignments successful. Forward-thinking corporations with a clear understanding of the benefits of international volunteer programs can empower meaningful citizen diplomacy, contributing to sustainable development practices and building partnerships in a globalized world.

In March alone, at least nine cities across three continents were hit by terrorist attacks. Municipalities—from megacities to tertiary cities—continue to bear the brunt of such attacks: in the short term, they provide first response and take essential security measures; in the longer term, they suffer from the fallout of intercommunal tensions and economic slowdowns, which can last for years and spread beyond the target city.

Yet, post-attack discussions tend to be dominated by what national governments can do to prevent future attacks—whether through enhanced border security, law enforcement, intelligence, or military measures; or though intensified efforts to resolve underlying conflicts; or through more cooperation with foreign governments. This is understandable given the resources of national governments and their long-standing monopoly on force and foreign policy. Nevertheless, a small but growing number of cities and other local authorities are realizing that they have an essential role to play in countering violent extremism (CVE) as well.

Urban trend-setters

There is nothing new about cities coming to the realization that they need to act in the face of global challenges. Mayors and city-networks such as the C40 Climate Action Leadership Group have vocally engaged on the global stage to counter carbon emissions. Cities have frequently shown themselves to be generally more nimble and less averse to risk-taking than their national counterparts. Mayors operate under intense expectations to “get things done,” but when it comes to the threats of transnational violent extremism, what does that mean?

Much like with climate change and other global challenges where cities are becoming increasingly active stakeholders, cities are serving as laboratories for developing and testing innovative initiatives to prevent violent extremism from taking root, designed and implemented in collaboration with local communities. 

[C]ities are serving as laboratories for developing and testing innovative initiatives to prevent violent extremism from taking root.

The comparative advantages of local authorities are manifold: They are best positioned to understand the grievances that might make their citizens vulnerable to terrorist recruitment; to identify the drivers and early signs of violent extremism; to build trust between the community and local police; to develop multi-agency prevention efforts that involve families, community leaders, social workers, and mental health professionals; and to develop programs that offer alternatives to alienated youth who might otherwise be attracted to violence. 

Recognizing these advantages, local leaders are developing strategies and programs to address the violent extremist threat at each stage of the radicalization cycle. Cities across Europe have been at the forefront of these efforts, with Aarhus, Denmark often cited as a model. The approach of Aarhus involves both prevention and care, relying an extensive community-level network to help young people returning from Syria an opportunity to reintegrate in Danish society (provided they haven’t committed a crime) and mentoring to try to dissuade people from traveling to the conflict. 

In Montgomery County, Maryland, the county authorities are involved in a community intervention program that includes training for faith leaders, teachers, social service providers, police, and parents on how to recognize the early signs of extremism in underserviced immigrant communities. 

In Montreal, a $2 million, multi-disciplinary “anti-radicalization center” provides mothers who suspect their children may be vulnerable to radicalization or recruitment with resources that don’t involve contacting the police. The center focuses on training people how to identify the signs of radicalization and researching the drivers of radicalization in Montreal and what works to prevent its growth. 

Cities are dynamic actors, in part, because they have no problem borrowing from each other. Inspired by the Montreal initiative, Brussels opened a prevention-focused, anti-radicalization center, which—like the Montreal center—keeps the police out of the picture unless necessary to confront an imminent threat.

In Australia, both Victoria and New South Wales have set aside funds to support local NGO-led interventions that target individuals who may be radicalizing and build community resilience.

In Mombasa, Kenya, Governor Hassan Ali Joho is working with the regional parliament and local civil society groups to develop a county-level CVE strategy that includes a heavy focus on providing youth with positive alternatives to joining al-Shabab.

Except for Mombasa, nearly all municipality-led CVE efforts are taking place in the global north. Throughout the world, mayors and other local leaders are not part of national-level conversations about how to prevent future attacks. If national governments insist on viewing national security issues like violent extremism as being the exclusive policy domain of the capital, they will miss crucial opportunities to address a threat that is increasingly localized. 

Part of the challenge is that, much like on other global issues, municipal authorities operate within the policy and bureaucratic frameworks of national governments. Those governments can enable or, just as frequently, impede effective local action. Thus, there is often a ceiling for local actors. Raising or breaking through the ceiling is particularly difficult in the security space, given the monopoly that many national governments want to maintain over issues of national security—even while recognizing the need for local solutions.

Flattening the CVE policy space

The good news is that in countries where local authorities can innovate and lead, energy around city-led CVE efforts is increasing. Cities are sharing lessons learned and challenges, with city-to-city networks like with the Strong Cities Network (SCN)—which held its first summit earlier this month in Antalya, Turkey—sprouting to facilitate cooperation.

Yet, a significant majority of SCN members are in countries where national governments already acknowledge local authorities’ key role in CVE. With a few exceptions, cities from large swathes of the globe—including in regions where the problem of violent extremism is most acute, like the Middle East and North Africa, as well as Asia—are not enabled to contribute to efforts to prevent violent extremism from taking root in their communities. 

CVE discussions in general should highlight ways in which national policymakers have enabled effective local CVE activities, as well as roadblocks and solutions. These discussions should also be brought into multilateral platforms such as the U.N. Global Counterterrorism Forum. 

A number of other steps could be taken to enhance vertical cooperation on CVE. For example, countries could involve municipal-level representatives (not simply the national ministry responsible for engaging with such authorities) in developing national CVE plans and provide such authorities with a role in implementation. National governments that already do this could start including representatives of cities in security and broader foreign policy dialogues, particularly with those that continue to resist their involvement. 

National governments should incentivize local authorities to work with their communities to innovate in this issue area. A public-private innovation fund could be established to support city-led CVE projects in countries where political will exceeds resources; those international donors committed to supporting local solutions to global challenges and increasing the involvement of local authorities in national security conversations should invest in such a fund and, more broadly, in building the capacity of city-level officials and practitioners in the CVE sphere.

None of these steps is likely to be an elixir—after all, the notion that national security issues should be handled exclusively at the national level is deeply entrenched. However, taking these steps can generate gradual improvements in vertical cooperation on CVE issues, much like we have seen with international and inter-agency counterterrorism cooperation involving national governments over the past decade. 

We’re just over midway through the hazy days of summer vacation, and children without access to high quality enrichment opportunities are already slipping behind their wealthier peers. As noted in a recent New York Times article, in addition to the decrease in math proficiency that most kids experience over the break, low-income children also lose more than two months of reading skills—skills they don’t regain during the school year. This compounds the already deep educational disparities found among students of different socioeconomic groups, which can be observed as early as 18 months of age.

Most efforts to address these gaps focus on improving our K-12 educational systems. Yet, children spend an average of 80 percent of their waking time outside of a classroom—a simple, yet startling statistic that highlights the need to explore a broader range of solutions.

As we learned at a recent Brookings event, Urban Thinkscape, an ongoing project from developmental psychologists Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, might be one of those solutions. Drawing on findings from their research on guided play—particularly from interventions like the Ultimate Block Party and The Supermarket Study—the project embeds playful learning activities, such as games and puzzles, into public places where children routinely spend time during non-school hours. Designed by architect Itai Palti, each installation is created with specific learning goals in mind and reflects best practices in psychological research.

With a pilot led by researcher Brenna Hassinger-Das in progress in the West Philadelphia Promise Zone, the project is already revealing important lessons—not only for educators, but for urban planners and policymakers as well.

The first involves the (often under-appreciated) need to work with local residents. Through meetings and focus groups with leaders of community organizations, neighbors, and Promise Zone stakeholders, the team gained a clearer understanding of resident needs, spurred interest in the project, identified potential sites, and improved designs. Residents were brought into the process early, empowered to offer suggestions at several stages, and will continue to be engaged as the project is implemented and assessed.

The upshot? When community members are meaningfully involved—and local wisdom valued—from the onset, residents become invested in the project and feel a sense of ownership of it over the long haul. This not only improves the likelihood that the project will succeed, but also helps foster neighborhood trust and cohesion, and builds social capital that can be applied to future efforts.

A second lesson is the extent to which a full scaling of the project could help transform distressed neighborhoods through what Project for Public Spaces often refers to as “lighter, quicker, cheaper” interventions.

Many high poverty urban areas are challenged with large numbers of vacant or underutilized properties, as well as dull spaces (like bus stops) that serve only utilitarian functions. The Urban Thinkscape project aims to take such spaces and remake them into opportunities for interaction and learning—and by doing so create tangible improvements to the neighborhood’s physical fabric. While the West Philadelphia pilot has substantial long-term planning behind it, ideally the “playful” installments will be refined over time so they can be more easily and cheaply implemented in other urban neighborhoods.

Finally, the Urban Thinkscape interventions have the potential to advance academic and spatial skills in children, reducing the gap in school readiness, and ultimately fostering better educational and life outcomes.

Many families in high poverty neighborhoods can’t afford extracurricular enrichment activities, particularly during the summer. And even where they might be offered—via community centers, or through other nonprofit initiatives focused on the arts, STEM activities, or sports—children may only experience them at certain times of the week. Urban Thinkscape aims to supplement these activities by embedding learning opportunities into the everyday landscape through interventions that develop numeracy, literacy, and other skills necessary to succeed in school and eventually the workforce. From an urban planning and policy perspective, this individual development is critical to helping build family wealth and vibrant, healthy city neighborhoods.

Though still nascent in its development, the Urban Thinkscape model appears to be a fun, innovative way to give children—and their caregivers—learning opportunities outside the classroom, while creating new gathering spaces and improved public places. In this way, the project is creatively employing the city itself as an agent of change. If the full vision of this work is realized, perhaps we can finally put the brakes on the “summer-slide” such that all kids can start the school year at the top of their game.

With over 16 million people and nearly 8.6 million jobs, America's older industrial cities remain a vital-if undervalued-part of the economy, particularly in states where they are heavily concentrated, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. They also have a range of other physical, economic, and cultural assets that, if fully leveraged, can serve as a platform for their renewal.

Read the Executive Summary  »

Across the country, cities today are becoming more attractive to certain segments of society. Meanwhile, economic trends-globalization, the demand for educated workers, the increasing role of universities-are providing cities with an unprecedented chance to capitalize upon their economic advantages and regain their competitive edge.

Many cities have exploited these assets to their advantage; the moment is ripe for older industrial cities to follow suit. But to do so, these cities need thoughtful and broad-based approaches to foster prosperity.

"Restoring Prosperity" aims to mobilize governors and legislative leaders, as well as local constituencies, behind an asset-oriented agenda for reinvigorating the market in the nation's older industrial cities. The report begins with identifications and descriptions of these cities-and the economic, demographic, and policy "drivers" behind their current condition-then makes a case for why the moment is ripe for advancing urban reform, and offers a five-part agenda and organizing plan to achieve it.

Publications & Presentations
Connecticut State Profile
Connecticut State Presentation 

Michigan State Profile
Michigan State Presentation 

New Jersey State Profile
New Jersey State Presentation 

New York State Profile
New York State Presentation 

Ohio State Profile
Ohio State Presentation
Ohio Revitalization Speech

Pennsylvania State Profile 

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At a legislative conference in Cambridge, Ohio, Bruce Katz stressed the importance of cities and metro areas to the state's overall prosperity. Acknowledging the decline of Ohio's older industrial cities, Katz noted the area's many assets and argued for a focus on innovation, human capital, infrastructure, and quality communities as means to revitalize the region. 

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On September 8, Brookings Senior Fellow Vanda Felbab-Brown participated in a Center for International Policy and Washington Office on Latin America event, “Using Militaries as Police in Latin America: A Discussion on Citizen Security and the Way Forward.” Felbab-Brown was joined on the panel by Adam Blackwell, secretary for multidimensional security at the Organization of American States; Richard Downie, executive vice president for global strategies at OMNITRU; and Adam Isacson, senior associate for regional security policy at the Washington Office on Latin America. Sarah Kinosian, lead researcher on Latin America at the Center for International Policy, moderated the event.

Felbab-Brown argued that police reform across Latin America over the past two decades has often been at best deficient or has failed outright. The lack of rule of law characterizes many countries in the region, including continually Mexico. Police forces are often not only corrupt, but highly abusive, and both police forces and military forces deployed for policing engage in major human rights violations. Even assumed exemplary experiments, such as the Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora (UPP) approach in Rio, have struggled to execute an effective handover from heavily-armed takeover forces to regular policing.

If governments choose to deploy their militaries in local policing roles, suboptimal as that is, the forces should adopt population-centric strategies, immediately develop concrete handover plans to police forces, and operate under a civilian coordinator. A key requirement for military forces is to respect human rights and due process and diligently prosecute perpetrators. Ultimately both police and military forces need to understand that their role is to protect society.

To some extent, Felbab-Brown argues, the resort to military forces for policing purposes is compounded by the lack of expeditionary police capacity by outside partners and donors, who overwhelmingly tend to deploy military forces for training policing. However, if the United States and outside donors want to make their policing assistance more effective, they should consider developing expeditionary police forces for such training purposes as well as a range of stabilization operations.

The most important factor for security efforts is citizen support. Marginalization, exclusion, and abuse from policing forces—be they police or military ones—have often prevented local populations from cooperating with law enforcement units and buying into rule of law: security or insecurity is co-produced as much as by citizens as by the police or military.

Today in Seattle, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray will announce the Central Puget Sound region is joining a pilot program that will create and implement plans to attract foreign direct investment as part of the Global Cities Initiative, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and JPMorgan Chase.

Mayor Murray will make this announcement at a Global Cities Initiative forum, where Seattle area business and civic leaders will also discuss strengthening the global identity of the Puget Sound region and expanding opportunities in overseas markets. Following the announcement, Mayor Marilyn Strickland of Tacoma and Mayor Ray Stephanson of Everett will make additional remarks about the importance of this new effort.

The Seattle area is joined in the pilot by Columbus, Ohio; Minneapolis-Saint Paul; Portland, Ore.; San Antonio; and San Diego. This group will meet in Seattle today for their first working session, where they will discuss the process for developing their foreign direct investment plans.

Foreign direct investment has long supported regional economies, not only by infusing capital, but also by investing in workers, strengthening global connections and sharing best business practices. The Global Cities Initiative’s foreign direct investment planning process will help metro areas promote their areas’ unique appeal, establish strategic and mutually beneficial relationships and attract this important, underutilized source of investment.

With the help of the Global Cities Initiative, the selected metro areas will strategically pursue foreign direct investment such as new expansions, mergers and acquisitions, and other types of foreign investment. Forthcoming Brookings research will offer metropolitan leaders more detailed data on foreign direct investment’s influence on local economies.

Read the Forum Press Release Here »

See the Event Recap »

WALK SCORE, a new Web site popular with urbanists and environmentalists (walkscore.com), rates places for their walkability—the ease of meeting daily needs on foot.

The popularity of the site is an indicator that how the American Dream plays out on the ground has been fundamentally changing over the last 10 to 15 years.

The Ozzie and Harriet drivable suburban version of the American Dream is being supplemented by the Seinfeld vision of "walkable urbanism." Led by late-marrying young adults and empty-nester baby-boomers, many households are looking for the excitement and options living and working in a walkable urban place can bring. With almost nine of 10 new households over the next 20 years being singles or couples without children, this trend promises to continue.

A recent Brookings Institution survey of the largest 30 metro areas in the country identifies the 157 walkable urban places that play a regionally significant role. It also ranks the Top 30 metros in per capita number of walkable urban places. The Philadelphia metropolitan area ranks as the 13th highest on the number of walkable urban places per capita.

Certainly the many already revived downtowns like those in Denver, Washington, Portland, Seattle and San Diego are the most visible signs of the walkable urban trend. But there are many other places you might not suspect.

This includes the emergence of "downtown-adjacent" places like Chelsea and Union Square in New York, suburban town centers like Pasadena and Long Beach in the L.A. area and even built-from-scratch spots like Reston Town Center near Dulles Airport, 30 miles outside Washington.

A major benefit of walkable urban development is that it keeps and attracts young adults to the metro area, many of whom willingly trade crushing car commutes and high gas prices for lively walkable places to live and work.

Walkable urban places seem to attract the well-educated, the so-called "creative class."

Approximately 26 percent of Americans over 25 have college degree - but 99 percent of the new residents moving to Center City this decade have a college degree.

Walkable urbanism increases the economic development potential of the metro area in the knowledge economy. If many of the Gen X-ers and the Millennial generations do not get this lifestyle, they'll move to New York or Washington, depriving Philadelphia of the entrepreneurs it needs to grow.

Walkable urbanism is also essential to create sustainable places to live and work, reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. It is probable that walkable urban households emit less than half the greenhouse gas as driving suburban households - they walk more and unavoidably share heat with upstairs neighbors.

Center City and Society Hill are the most obvious, though not the only, locations of this trend in the Philadelphia region. The recent emergence of University City around Penn and Drexel, Manayunk and New Hope are other significant walkable urban places in the Delaware Valley.

Missing are additional places in the suburbs, particularly around commuter and subway stations.

Rail transit is crucial for walkable urbanism places to emerge.

The investment has already been made for this comprehensive, if underfunded, rail system. Building high-density, mixed-use places around these stations will fulfill pent-up market demand, promote economic growth, lower greenhouse emissions and even give their suburban neighbors a great place for a restaurant within walking distance.

Over the next few years, Philadelphia metro will no doubt see its ranking in the Brookings survey rise while more households will see their Walk Score numbers soar. Seinfeld is coming to Philadelphia. *

Leinberger is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, professor at the University of Michigan and a limited partner in Arcadia Land Co., which has projects in the Philadelphia and Kansas City areas. His most recent book is "The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a new American dream" (Island Press, 2007).

There's been a lot of talk of Pittsburgh's "new economy" as a key reason for the city's star turn as host of this week's G-20 summit, but little has been said about the region's "next economy" -- what comes after the current slump.

It's beginning to be created under our noses.

Though seemingly abstract, the G-20's big-picture decisions -- on dialing down the extraordinary fiscal and monetary steps taken in the past year, building a new regulatory architecture for global finance, and starting the process towards a more balanced global economy and sustainable future -- have big implications for metropolitan areas.

Pittsburgh's stake in the G-20 deliberations goes beyond filling up local hotels and restaurants or hiring additional police -- and even beyond showcasing the region's resilience to the recession.

The fact is that Pittsburgh already is a global metropolis, with deep and growing ties to many of the G-20 countries because of its position as a supplier to the global steel industry (and still a maker of some types of steel), its burgeoning involvement in clean-energy sectors and its established position as a global center of education and health care.

Bayer, the German pharmaceutical conglomerate, has its U.S. headquarters in Pittsburgh, employing some 2,700 workers, including 1,200 at local medical-device manufacturer Medrad. Gamesa, the Spanish wind-energy giant, opened its first North American plant in Ebensburg, about 75 miles east of Pittsburgh. All told, more than 300 international firms from 26 different countries operate in the region, employing tens of thousands of people.

Pittsburgh's goods and services exports make up more than 14 percent of the region's gross metropolitan product, with the lion's share of goods headed to Canada, China, Japan and major economies in Europe -- all G-20 partners.

Given Pittsburgh's global status, the G-20 discussions have substantial implications for the future of the region's $100 billion economy.

The big question, at this summit and others in the future, is how to rebalance the global economy. The Great Recession followed a period of excessive consumption in the United States as Americans spent more on homes and consumer goods than they produced.

The fix is easy to state, but difficult to engineer. As Larry Summers, the head of the White House National Economic Council, said recently, "The rebuilt American economy must be more export-oriented and less consumption-oriented."

This rebalancing will require major and sustained action on currency values and trade policy in the United States as well as in large export economies like China, Germany and Japan (which will need to consume more). As this occurs, U.S. metro areas like Pittsburgh could benefit substantially given their unique assets and special niches.

While this won't quite be a 21st-century version of the equation "what Pittsburgh makes, the world takes," the combination of a more export-oriented trade policy and higher costs for carbon emissions (also to be discussed at the G-20 summit) present the region's economy with both opportunities and threats.

On the plus side, Pittsburgh could export more to the rest of the world and its steel-industry suppliers could benefit from increased exports by U.S. steelmakers. Higher prices for gasoline and jet fuel could mean that manufacturers and retailers in the United States would move away from far-flung networks of global suppliers and rely more on U.S. companies.

There is a potential downside for Pittsburgh, as well: for instance, as steelmakers in Germany and other countries export less and face higher costs of using U.S.-based suppliers, they might rely less on machinery and repair services from Pittsburgh.

To help ensure that the benefits of a rebalanced U.S. economy and a new climate regime outweigh the costs to the Pittsburgh area, local corporate, labor, political, university and civic leaders need a sharp regional business plan to guide the economic policies and innovation investments that they and the federal and state governments make in the Pittsburgh area.

Pittsburgh will have to continue to reclaim polluted industrial "brown fields" for post-industrial use -- an example for cities around the country and world.

Pittsburgh also will need to figure out how to draw more international traffic to its metropolitan airport, which currently offers only one direct flight to Europe.

The upshot: It is time for U.S. metropolitan regions to become more globally fluent and for national leaders to connect their big-picture policies to the fortunes of the urban areas that drive their economies. Only in this way can the United States, and Pittsburgh, move to the next stage of their economic evolution.

Cities across America are undergoing massive demographic change, and Philadelphia is no exception. Understanding this change, and effectively managing it, will be key to our national progress and prosperity in this decade and beyond.

A new report from the Brookings Institution, "The State of Metropolitan America," describes a nation that has grown larger, more diverse, more suburban, and more educated in the first decade of this century. These characteristics offer the potential for a tremendous advantage among industrialized nations as the global economy becomes more integrated and more competitive.

The Philadelphia region, for instance, is now home to 92 colleges and universities - more than the renowned concentration of higher education institutions in the Boston area. In our research on the demographic transformation of the nation, we refer to Philadelphia as a "skilled anchor" - one of 19 metro areas, including Baltimore, Rochester, N.Y., and Boston, that have made a transition from manufacturing and shipping to service-based economies. Medical and educational institutions have often driven this transformation, along with specialized manufacturing.

Skilled anchors face challenges, however, due to other trends. While 32 percent of Philadelphia area residents over the age of 25 hold bachelor's degrees, only 21 percent of residents of the city itself have been educated beyond high school.

That is cause for concern, especially as baby boomers begin to retire - most notably in the suburbs, where more than 40 percent of the residents are boomers and seniors. The young people who will take their place in the workforce are not completing college education at the same rate as their predecessors. This is problematic considering that median household income declined during the 2000s, and higher education is closely correlated with higher wages.

Meeting the region's future workforce challenges - that is, connecting residents to high-quality jobs in the education, medicine, life-sciences, and pharmaceutical sectors - will require education policies that prepare all children for successful postsecondary education, so they can build on the economic momentum of the retiring baby boomers.

As part of the national Achieving the Dream Initiative, several foundations are working together to help community colleges in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana improve completion rates for minority and low-income students who are most at risk of dropping out and not getting the skills and credentials they need to succeed in the workforce.

Other demographic trends represent challenges as well as opportunities. The Philadelphia region's foreign-born population grew by 30 percent in the 2000s, albeit from a relatively small base. Efforts to incorporate immigrants into the mainstream of economic and civic life - such as Philadelphia's language-access policy, its one-stop education office, and the region's emerging Metropolitan Caucus - are all praiseworthy. But more is required.

At the same time, while solutions must be built from the ground up, the Philadelphia region can't go it alone. The federal government can't wait for megacities such as Philadelphia to work out the massive transformation under way by themselves. There are macro-level federal responses to these trends that could and should emanate from Washington.

Among them are comprehensive immigration reform that includes explicit means for improving the integration of new Americans into our society and economy; a revamping of transportation and housing policy that reduces energy-inefficient sprawl, accommodates seniors, and provides access to employment centers; programs to increase postsecondary education for our emerging workforce; and a redoubling of efforts to make work pay for working families, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Over the past decade, between two recessions, Philadelphia has made much progress. Today, the region must capitalize on its hard-earned gains and address emerging challenges with similar conviction.

Executive Summary

Cities are creations of their states. Their boundaries, their powers, and their responsibilities are all substantially prescribed by state law. With the advent of the new federalism—beginning in the 1970s and resurgent today—the devolution of power from Washington to state capitals has increased the importance of state decision making for cities.

Yet, this shift occurred precisely as cities were losing political clout in state legislatures due to population decline within city limits and rampant growth in suburban jurisdictions.

This paper argues that in response to shifting population distributions within states, cities need to build new coalitions to effectively achieve their legislative goals within state legislatures. Case studies—New York City, Chicago, Detroit, and the three largest cities in Ohio (Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus)—are used to more closely examine coalition-building methods.

Overall, the authors find:

• Cities' dependence on state government has increased as the federal government has ceded more power to the states. As cities' populations have declined, they have become weaker in state legislatures that have grown more powerful due to federal policy. In the peak year of 1978, about 15 percent of city revenues came from the federal government. By 1999 that had decreased to 3 percent. Concurrently, the federal government has shifted a number of programs to the states, which control the rules and revenue mechanisms cities operate under.

• Traditional political coalitions cities have used to achieve their state legislative goals are no longer as effective. Partisan (usually Democratic) coalitions are less reliable as focus has shifted to suburban swing districts. Moreover, as their power has decreased, cities' agendas have become more reactive, aiming to preserve the status quo in funding, infrastructure projects, and autonomy.

• Older, inner-ring suburbs are a logical new partner for cities in state legislatures. Increasingly, these suburbs, and some outer ones, have common interests with central cities as they address immigration, fiscal stress, and infrastructure woes. Such alliances would also better address metropolitan-wide issues on a metropolitan basis.

There remain many obstacles to forging such coalitions, however, including longtime distrust among big cities and their neighbors, racial disparities, and in some cases, growing investment in central cities while surrounding suburbs languish. Nonetheless, for cities to effectively influence their state governments more creative approaches to coalition building must be found.

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Before the City Club in Cleveland, Bruce Katz emphasized the importance of Ohio's older industrial cities for the state's overall prosperity and outlined, despite seemingly grim statistics, why now is the time for a rebirth of those places and how it can be achieved.

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At a legislative conference in Cambridge, Ohio, Bruce Katz stressed the importance of cities and metro areas to the state's overall prosperity. Acknowledging the decline of Ohio's older industrial cities, Katz noted the area's many assets and argued for a focus on innovation, human capital, infrastructure, and quality communities as means to revitalize the region. 

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For over 100 years, the driving force of Ohio’s economy has been the state’s so-called Big Eight cities—Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron, Dayton, Canton, and Youngstown. Today, though, the driving reality of these cities is sustained, long-term population loss. The central issue confronting these cities—and the state and surrounding metropolitan area—is not whether these cities will have different physical footprints and more green space than they do now, but how it will happen.

The state must adopt a different way of thinking and a different vision of its cities’ future—and so must the myriad local, civic, philanthropic, and business leaders who will also play a role in reshaping Ohio’s cities. The following seven basic premises should inform any vision for a smaller, stronger future and subsequent strategies for change in these places:

• These cities contain significant assets for future rebuilding
  
• These cities will not regain their peak population
  
• These cities have a surplus of housing
  
• These cities have far more vacant land than can be absorbed by redevelopment
  
• Impoverishment threatens the viability of these cities more than population loss as such
  
• Local resources are severely limited
  
• The fate of cities and their metropolitan areas are inextricably inter-connected
  

These premises have significant implications for the strategies that state and local governments should pursue to address the issues of shrinking cities.

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Editor's Note: As part of the 2014 Midterm Elections Series, Brookings scholars and outside experts will weigh in on issues that are central to this year's campaigns, how the candidates are engaging those topics, and what will shape policy for the next two years.

Since the Citizens United decision, political spending by outside groups has been shaping voters’ opinions before Election Day and public policy afterwards.  Spending patterns that began after the 2010 decision will continue during the upcoming midterms: nonparty, outside spending will flow through two distinct pipelines—super PACs and politically active nonprofits. This time around there seems to be a partisan split to the spending, with Democrats leaning towards super PACs and Republicans relying more on dark money nonprofits. But whichever tool is used to funnel money into competitive races, imperfect or non-existent disclosure rules leave voters unable to determine whether access and influence is being sold to highest bidder.

Shining a brighter light on super PAC and nonprofit campaign spending would not cleanse the system of all of its corrupting influences, but it would help to restore citizens’ trust in government by eliminating the secrecy that makes voters believe their elected officials have something to hide. More disclosure would also result in the equally important outcome of demonstrating that government trusts us, its citizens, with information about how the influence industry works.   

When Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government...whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights,” he certainly could not have conceived of secret money’s impact on elections and policy-making. But every year that goes by with Congress failing to address secret campaign spending challenges the founding father’s time-tested wisdom.

When the Supreme Court decided Citizens United, it was either willfully blind or sorely naïve about the state of political finance disclosure. Justice Kennedy swept aside concerns about the corrupting influence of unlimited political spending by claiming that, “With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions. . . This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.”

Unfortunately, no such prompt disclosure existed at the time, nor has Congress been able to pass any improvements to the transparency regime since then. In the case of super PACs, while information about donors must eventually be disclosed to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), disclosures can be delayed by up to three months.  This is not an inconsequential delay, especially when contributions come are in the multi-million dollar range.

There is even less disclosure by politically active nonprofits.  Their overall expenditures are only disclosed after the election in annual reports filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The donors to dark money groups may never be known, as the law does not require the names of donors to such groups to be disclosed. Yet more than 55 percent of advertising has been paid for by dark money groups, and 80 percent advertising benefitting Republican candidates has been paid for with undisclosed funds according to the New York Times. 

Congress and the executive branch have no shortage of methods to make money in politics more transparent, but have so far failed to demonstrate they respect voters enough to entrust us with that information.  The Real Time Transparency Act (S. 2207, H.R. 4442) would ensure that contributions of $1000 or more to candidates, parties and PACs, including super PACs, are disclosed within 48 hours. It would also require electronic filing of campaign finance reports.  The DISCLOSE Act, S. 2516, would disclose contributors to political nonprofits entrusting voters with information that currently is only known to the candidates who may benefit from dark money contributions. 

Affirmative congressional action would be the strongest signal that government trusts its citizens, but executive branch agencies can also take important steps to make political finance information more transparent. The IRS is in the process of reforming rules to better clarify when a nonprofit is a political organization and thus must disclose its donors.  The Securities and Exchange Commission can likewise modify its rules to require publicly traded companies to disclose their political activities.

Many large donors have gone to great lengths to take their political activities underground, claiming they fear attacks in the form of criticism or boycotts of their companies.  But just as participating in the political process through contributing to election efforts is an expression of free speech, so is criticizing such efforts.  Yet until campaign finance information is fully and quickly made public, the first amendment rights of voters and their ability to participate fully in our democracy are drastically shortchanged.

WALK SCORE, a new Web site popular with urbanists and environmentalists (walkscore.com), rates places for their walkability—the ease of meeting daily needs on foot.

The popularity of the site is an indicator that how the American Dream plays out on the ground has been fundamentally changing over the last 10 to 15 years.

The Ozzie and Harriet drivable suburban version of the American Dream is being supplemented by the Seinfeld vision of "walkable urbanism." Led by late-marrying young adults and empty-nester baby-boomers, many households are looking for the excitement and options living and working in a walkable urban place can bring. With almost nine of 10 new households over the next 20 years being singles or couples without children, this trend promises to continue.

A recent Brookings Institution survey of the largest 30 metro areas in the country identifies the 157 walkable urban places that play a regionally significant role. It also ranks the Top 30 metros in per capita number of walkable urban places. The Philadelphia metropolitan area ranks as the 13th highest on the number of walkable urban places per capita.

Certainly the many already revived downtowns like those in Denver, Washington, Portland, Seattle and San Diego are the most visible signs of the walkable urban trend. But there are many other places you might not suspect.

This includes the emergence of "downtown-adjacent" places like Chelsea and Union Square in New York, suburban town centers like Pasadena and Long Beach in the L.A. area and even built-from-scratch spots like Reston Town Center near Dulles Airport, 30 miles outside Washington.

A major benefit of walkable urban development is that it keeps and attracts young adults to the metro area, many of whom willingly trade crushing car commutes and high gas prices for lively walkable places to live and work.

Walkable urban places seem to attract the well-educated, the so-called "creative class."

Approximately 26 percent of Americans over 25 have college degree - but 99 percent of the new residents moving to Center City this decade have a college degree.

Walkable urbanism increases the economic development potential of the metro area in the knowledge economy. If many of the Gen X-ers and the Millennial generations do not get this lifestyle, they'll move to New York or Washington, depriving Philadelphia of the entrepreneurs it needs to grow.

Walkable urbanism is also essential to create sustainable places to live and work, reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. It is probable that walkable urban households emit less than half the greenhouse gas as driving suburban households - they walk more and unavoidably share heat with upstairs neighbors.

Center City and Society Hill are the most obvious, though not the only, locations of this trend in the Philadelphia region. The recent emergence of University City around Penn and Drexel, Manayunk and New Hope are other significant walkable urban places in the Delaware Valley.

Missing are additional places in the suburbs, particularly around commuter and subway stations.

Rail transit is crucial for walkable urbanism places to emerge.

The investment has already been made for this comprehensive, if underfunded, rail system. Building high-density, mixed-use places around these stations will fulfill pent-up market demand, promote economic growth, lower greenhouse emissions and even give their suburban neighbors a great place for a restaurant within walking distance.

Over the next few years, Philadelphia metro will no doubt see its ranking in the Brookings survey rise while more households will see their Walk Score numbers soar. Seinfeld is coming to Philadelphia. *

Leinberger is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, professor at the University of Michigan and a limited partner in Arcadia Land Co., which has projects in the Philadelphia and Kansas City areas. His most recent book is "The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a new American dream" (Island Press, 2007).

For over 100 years, the driving force of Ohio’s economy has been the state’s so-called Big Eight cities—Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron, Dayton, Canton, and Youngstown. Today, though, the driving reality of these cities is sustained, long-term population loss. The central issue confronting these cities—and the state and surrounding metropolitan area—is not whether these cities will have different physical footprints and more green space than they do now, but how it will happen.

The state must adopt a different way of thinking and a different vision of its cities’ future—and so must the myriad local, civic, philanthropic, and business leaders who will also play a role in reshaping Ohio’s cities. The following seven basic premises should inform any vision for a smaller, stronger future and subsequent strategies for change in these places:

• These cities contain significant assets for future rebuilding
  
• These cities will not regain their peak population
  
• These cities have a surplus of housing
  
• These cities have far more vacant land than can be absorbed by redevelopment
  
• Impoverishment threatens the viability of these cities more than population loss as such
  
• Local resources are severely limited
  
• The fate of cities and their metropolitan areas are inextricably inter-connected
  

These premises have significant implications for the strategies that state and local governments should pursue to address the issues of shrinking cities.

Full Paper on Ohio's Cities » (PDF)
Paper on Shrinking Cities Across the United States »

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With over 16 million people and nearly 8.6 million jobs, America's older industrial cities remain a vital-if undervalued-part of the economy, particularly in states where they are heavily concentrated, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. They also have a range of other physical, economic, and cultural assets that, if fully leveraged, can serve as a platform for their renewal.

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Across the country, cities today are becoming more attractive to certain segments of society. Meanwhile, economic trends-globalization, the demand for educated workers, the increasing role of universities-are providing cities with an unprecedented chance to capitalize upon their economic advantages and regain their competitive edge.

Many cities have exploited these assets to their advantage; the moment is ripe for older industrial cities to follow suit. But to do so, these cities need thoughtful and broad-based approaches to foster prosperity.

"Restoring Prosperity" aims to mobilize governors and legislative leaders, as well as local constituencies, behind an asset-oriented agenda for reinvigorating the market in the nation's older industrial cities. The report begins with identifications and descriptions of these cities-and the economic, demographic, and policy "drivers" behind their current condition-then makes a case for why the moment is ripe for advancing urban reform, and offers a five-part agenda and organizing plan to achieve it.

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Michigan State Presentation 

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For over 100 years, the driving force of Ohio’s economy has been the state’s so-called Big Eight cities—Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron, Dayton, Canton, and Youngstown. Today, though, the driving reality of these cities is sustained, long-term population loss. The central issue confronting these cities—and the state and surrounding metropolitan area—is not whether these cities will have different physical footprints and more green space than they do now, but how it will happen.

The state must adopt a different way of thinking and a different vision of its cities’ future—and so must the myriad local, civic, philanthropic, and business leaders who will also play a role in reshaping Ohio’s cities. The following seven basic premises should inform any vision for a smaller, stronger future and subsequent strategies for change in these places:

• These cities contain significant assets for future rebuilding
  
• These cities will not regain their peak population
  
• These cities have a surplus of housing
  
• These cities have far more vacant land than can be absorbed by redevelopment
  
• Impoverishment threatens the viability of these cities more than population loss as such
  
• Local resources are severely limited
  
• The fate of cities and their metropolitan areas are inextricably inter-connected
  

These premises have significant implications for the strategies that state and local governments should pursue to address the issues of shrinking cities.

Full Paper on Ohio's Cities » (PDF)
Paper on Shrinking Cities Across the United States »

Downloads

• Full Paper