How poor regional planning can suck the life out of cities.

Regionalism is all the rage. The Obama Administration is betting big on regional planning as a way to make smarter decisions on transportation, climate, the economy—all those things that don’t respect political boundaries. The Administration plans to reward communities that work together across jurisdictions toward common goals and, by implication, punish those that do not.

Who can argue with that? I certainly can’t.

But as I sit…

Rick DeVos is an unlikely urban hero. A Grand Rapids native, he is a scion of the famous (and famously conservative) Rich DeVos, co-founder of Amway. Yet, here he is, reinventing the rules of art, with his creation of ArtPrize, now underway in his hometown (and covered previously on GOOD). If urban leaders are paying close attention, they will use DeVos’ art inspiration as a way to transform the way they do business.

On October 8,…

Urban policy is generally understood to include such things as housing, neighborhood revitalization, and poverty alleviation. While all of these are important to the success of cities, even in combination they don’t come close to equaling the importance of talent to the success of cities.

Talent—defined as the percentage of college graduates in a city’s population—explains almost 60 percent of a city’s success as measured by per capita income. To wit: If urban policy does not…

People who love cities have known for years what the rest of the country is just starting to figure out: urban life is a beautiful thing. But even city lovers may be surprised at the premium home buyers place on urban living.

A new study from CEOs for Cities to be released this week shows that homes in close proximity to multiple destinations, such as stores, libraries, parks, coffee shops, restaurants, are more valuable than similar homes…

During a decade when Americans returned to cities for the first time in 50 years, it surprises me that “urban” can still be a code word for all things negative.

Attach the word “urban” to almost any ill, and what is bad becomes worse. Urban poverty is worse than poverty. Urban crime is worse than crime. It must follow that urban neighborhoods are worse than just neighborhoods, right?

Wrong. In fact, really wrong. But you would hardly know…