Dr. Mariela Alfonzo, founder of State of Place, discusses three pillars - data, community, and cooperation - needed to promote spatial justice to address inequitable disparities in access to good urban design and related quality of life outcomes.

“We have all learned lessons this past year about simplifying and improving our lives by staying at home more and deepening our roots in our communities. And these lessons, I would argue, will incentivize more of us to participate in urban-based businesses by living in rural settings.” Michael H. Shuman, leading visionary on community economics, sees a bright future for rural communities and local economies.

“The Maryland Neighborhood Exchange offers a model of what every community in the United States—including yours—should do. For very little cost, you can create a listing of local companies looking for investment dollars on the national crowdfunding portals and provide your neighbors an easy place to review opportunities to invest locally.” Michael H. Shuman, leading visionary on community economics, shows the value of local crowdfunding.

“Scotland is a nation of towns. Decades ago, Scotland’s town centres were bustling and vibrant, and the reason was we lived in them. Now we live a couple of miles out of town in car dependent housing schemes where many don’t even know their own neighbours as commuting leaves less time for communities.” Phil Prentice, CEO of Scotland’s Towns Partnership, writes on the key to a better urban future

Rhode Island has achieved one of the biggest drops in unemployment rates in the U.S. More than 20 new policies and programs aligned to support this growth. Despite substantial progress, a new round of policy and practice innovation is needed to continue the trajectory. Urban scholars Luise Noring and Bruce Katz recommend three main areas of focus, with 17 tangible and feasible suggestions for change.

As affordable and social housing rarely yield high returns, the task of providing it falls on municipalities; however, these are often strained for public finances and face a multitude of conflicting investment demands. The question is then: How can cities provide affordable and social housing with a shortage of fiscal resources and a multitude of conflicting political demands?

How do we measure the strenghts and weaknesses of towns and help residents gain a deeper understanding of their homes? Understanding Scottish Places is a tool which helps towns practitioners and communities better understand the function of the towns they live and work in. The platform functions as a diagnostic tool while providing the opportunity to compare and contrast data about places across the country.

Across the world, governments are grappling with climate change and crafting solutions that aim to reduce carbon emissions and advance sustainable growth. In this report, urban scholars Luise Noring and Julie Jo Nygaard seek to understand how multiple public, private and civic stakeholders collaborate to deliver large-scale transformative projects in sustainable transport.

Across the world, cities are grappling with climate change and crafting solutions that aim to reduce carbon emissions and advance innovative, sustainable, and inclusive growth. Urban scholars, Bruce Katz, Luise Noring, and Savvas Verdis, have selected a small group of cities that they find to be first-movers in their regions for sustainable urban solutions.

Urban scholars, Luise Noring and Bruce Katz, examine the need to include cities as full-fledged participants and partners in the refugee response. They find that public, private, and civic leaders in municipalities across Germany and Europe have been on the front lines of refugee reception and integration. In the face of these huge challenges, they are inventing new methods of delivering the services that new arrivals need to be healthy and productive members of their new countries.

In this report, Luise Noring presents how Denmark devolved power to municipalities in a successful and replicable manner. Successful devolution in Denmark is largely due to the institutional innovation of KL - Local Government Denmark (KL - Kommunernes Landsforening). This report explores KL - Local Government Denmark’s strategies, while investigating how municipalities gain from increased devolution of political and fiscal power through organising for increased self-governance at local and national levels.

In this case study, Luise Noring and Bruce Katz compare and contrast the Copenhagen model with major regeneration efforts and institutional innovations that are underway in Hamburg (HafenCity), Helsinki (Kalasatama), and Lyon (Lyon Confluence). Each of these case studies shows how cities are leveraging public assets in different contexts, under different circumstances, and in different geographies. The proliferation of disparate approaches offers multiple options for mature and developing cities interested in undertaking transformative interventions.

This paper considers the cases of urban redevelopment at waterfront and brownfield sites in Copenhagen (Denmark) and Hamburg (Germany) to explore how two municipal governments have pursued divergent kinds of entrepreneurial governance, even as they have aimed to create similar kinds of new-build neighbourhoods.

This case study focuses on the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC), a 16-year-old nonprofit corporation that has driven the regeneration of Over-the-Rhine, a formerly distressed community located near the traditional downtown. 3CDC powerfully blends corporate and philanthropic resources, strong professional management, and close cooperation with the public sector. It has a replicable governance structure and a strategic mix of public, private and civic ownership and responsibilities. It has already provided the model for the new Downtown Development Corporation in Erie, Pennsylvania and could be adapted to dozens of other cities.

“As the global recession, climate change, the pandemic to name but a few globally transformative events blow through the world, deep rooted inadequacies and malfunctions of our societies are exacerbated. In fact, such global events reveal good as well as bad societies. These events are compelling cities to rethink how we design, finance and deliver urban redevelopment. The pre-pandemic model was neither inclusive nor sustainable. In Denmark, an alternative model has emerged that uses the disposition of public assets to drive the creation of public wealth.” Urban scholar, Luise Noring, examines new ways to drive urban revival.

Urban scholar, Luise Noring, assesses the effectiveness of different models of public/private sector participation for urban regeneration and land value capture, where the public land owner is required to act in the public interest and the private sector motive is driven by the need to maximize returns.

“This paper explores how the Copenhagen model can revitalize cities and finance large-scale infrastructure by increasing the commercial yield of publicly owned land and buildings without raising taxes. The approach deploys an innovative institutional vehicle—a publicly owned, privately run corporation—to achieve the high-level management and value appreciation of assets more commonly found in the private sector while retaining development profits for public use.” Urban scholars, Luise Noring and Bruce Katz, discuss the Copenhagen model as a tool for urban revitalization.

“The world is changing. Businesses that exist for profit and purpose are now commonplace. Social enterprises prioritise people and the environment, ensuring they are looked after through business – rather than as collateral of profit-making.” The authors examine the potential for unlocking innovation and entrepreneurship while creating greater wellbeing.

“When asked to look at any organisation from an independent consultant perspective we often use the phrase of “flying in from Mars”. In other words, if I were flying in from Mars today and wanted to set up an organisation to address your particular cause with the most impact, would I set up your organisation? The authors ask hard questions and challenge us all to reconsider our impact.

“While the term ‘social enterprise’ itself is relatively new, the fundamental concepts behind it are not. We are still at the early stages of the growth of the social enterprise sector here in Aotearoa. What better time to think about how Māoritanga – Māori culture, practices and beliefs and way of life – can help flavour our particular recipe?” The authors dive into a country’s past to find a way forward.

“Put simply: business of the past has often had a focus on being extractive rather than being regenerative. In response, a growing movement of impact entrepreneurs and investors are taking up the challenge of rethinking, redesigning and reorienting available legal structures of ownership and finance to ensure ‘purpose primacy’.” The authors propose an intergenerational and sustainable approach to business ownership.

“For decades our rules have lacked clarity over the function of directors, their duties and what they should consider when making decisions. Our thinking has been influenced by the economist Milton Friedman who in 1970 declared that the primary function of a company is to generate wealth for its shareholders.” Lawyer and podcaster Steven Moe examines a new role for private companies in our communities.

“Rather than #buildbackbetter perhaps we need to question if we want to go “back” and return to how things have been. Perhaps this is a chance not just to return to old ways but to embrace new conceptions, and it will be a shame if we miss it.” Lawyer and podcaster Steven Moe challenges us to rethink the future we want.

“We need to balance profit with purpose while incorporating new ways of thinking about ownership as stewards of what we have. Requiring the purpose to be clear will mean directors have a Northern Star to refer back to and guide them.” Steven Moe writes on the tyranny of the status quo.

“We believe the real secret to Copenhagen’s success is process innovation; it’s ability to create a series of public and public/private institutions with the capacity and capital to drive solutions at scale.” Esteemed urban scholars, Luise Noring and Bruce J. Katz, explain the key to Copenhagen’s strenghts in green innovation and highlight seven critical governance and finance lessons for local, national and global policymakers.

All developers and urban decisionmakers (and everybody else), please listen to chef, writer, and local entrepreneur, Trine Hahnemann, as she elaborates on the importance of understanding cities through food and reconnecting health, culture, and community. Reconnecting city and countryside; production and consumption; real estate value and biodiversity; democracy and commerce.

Who owns the city? Which underlying systems determine the development of cities? And are they the right ones? Do they create the best possible places and communities?

In the Swedish town of Västervik, private and public stakeholders joined forces and transformed stagnation and decline into significant progress.