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Cristina Ampatzidou, editor-in-chief of Amateur Cities, a "city-making" publishing platform in Rotterdam: "It is often said that great cities survived great empires. So it is not unrealistic to think of cities as discrete entities that compete and collaborate with each other, independently from the states to which they belong."

The National League of Cities (NLC) is dedicated to helping city leaders build better communities. Working in partnership with the 49 state municipal leagues, NLC serves as a resource to and an advocate for the more than 19,000 cities, villages and towns it represents.

The MIT Senseable City Laboratory aims to investigate and anticipate how digital technologies are changing the way people live and their implications at the urban scale. Director Carlo Ratti founded the Senseable City Lab in 2004 within the City Design and Development group at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, as well as in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab. The Lab's mission states...See More

The rise of the state is a key marker in the evolution of human society. States typically emerged when one chiefdom (amid a competing set of chiefdoms) achieved a greater and more effective level of organization.
Despite the presence of similar conditions, some states rose and flourished while some advanced chiefdoms never passed the threshold into statehood. Why states emerged in some places and not others, why they arose independently in six places around the world starting about 5,000 years ago, and why their rise was usually associated with the growth of cities, are fascinating questions for anthropologists. Answers to these questions could offer insights into today's urban systems.

The 50 State Solution was conceived in early 2016 by California Forward (CA Fwd) as a transpartisan effort to build supportive infrastructure--and a platform for sharing information and ideas--among those working on political reform at the state level. While CA Fwd has served as the initiator and early catalyst of the effort, the vision for 50 State Solution is that it becomes an ongoing effort with shared leadership from the political reform community. The goal of the effort is explicitly not to make sure every organization is doing the same work or working on the same issue. Instead, the goal is create a learning community where reformers can share stories of success and failure, find allies, create coalitions and build community.

NCoC's Civic Health Index elevates the discussion of our nation's civic health. We work with national, state, and city partners to measure how much people trust their neighbors, are active in their communities, and interact with their government. By measuring a wide variety of civic indicators, we educate Americans about our civic life and motivate people to strengthen it.  As civic health data becomes an increasing part of the dialogue around which policymakers, communities, and the media talk about civic life, the index is increasing in its scope and specificity to the state, city, and demographic levels.

United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) represents and defends the interests of local governments on the world stage, regardless of the size of the communities they serve. Headquartered in Barcelona, the organisation's stated mission is: To be the united voice and world advocate of democratic local self-government, promoting its values, objectives and interests, through cooperation between local governments, and within the wider international community.

Cities and metros are working to restructure the economy away from tantalizing illusion (endless consumption and irresponsible speculation) and back toward hard fundamentals: talent-fueled production and innovation. For a nation undergoing profound demographic transformation, the metropolitan model of education and social integration provides a path toward managing growth and diversity in a way benefits everyone. Cities and metros understand what the nation fitfully remembers and often contests: The United States is demographically blessed and this is our greatest competitive advantage and strength

Plan4Health is launching in neighborhoods, cities, and counties across the United States, funding work at the intersection of planning and public health. Anchored by American Planning Association (APA) chapters and American Public Health Association (APHA) affiliate members, Plan4Health supports creative partnerships to build sustainable, cross-sector coalitions. Each coalition is committed to increasing health equity through nutrition or physical activity. And, each coalition is dedicated to meeting the needs of residents where they live, work, or play.

California YIMBY is a grassroots movement that works to make our state affordable and accessible for everyone. We support state and local legislation to reverse policies that make our housing cost more and our communities less inclusive.

From 2014 to 2015, more than 70,000 residents across the United States and Canada directly decided how their cities and districts should spend nearly $50 million in public funds through a process known as participatory budgeting (PB). PB is among the fastest growing forms of public engagement in local governance, having expanded to 46 communities in the U.S. and Canada in just 6 years.

Participatory budgeting (PB) is a democratic process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. Most examples involve city governments that have opened up decisions around municipal budgets, such as overall priorities and choice of new investments, to citizen assemblies. In other cases, states, counties, schools, universities, housing authorities, and coalitions of community groups have used participatory budgeting to open up spending decisions to democratic participation.

UN-HABITAT's programmes are designed to help policy-makers and local communities get to grips with the human settlements and urban issues and find workable, lasting solutions. The organization's mandate is outlined in the Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements, Habitat Agenda, Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements, the Declaration on Cities and Other Human Settlements in the New Millennium, and Resolution 56/206. UN-HABITAT's work is directly related to the United Nations Millennium Declaration, particularly the goals of member States to improve the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020, Target 11, Millennium Development Goal No. 7, and Target 10 which calls for the reduction by half of the number without sustainable access to safe drinking water.

The Big Ideas for Jobs project compiles ideas about programs and policies that help to create jobs. As a starting point, we have established the following criteria for the ideas. The proposed programs should be designed for implementation by cities and/or states (with or without federal support) and should lead to net new job creation in a short-term framework (one to three years).

"This webpage aims to collect as many examples as possible where city, state, and national leaders are making COVID-19 recovery plans in ways that could also produce benefits in racial, gender, and economic equity and in climate change mitigation and resilience. It is being maintained by the multisolving team at Climate Interactive, including Dr. Elizabeth Sawin and Cassandra Ceballos. "

This Green, Resilient, and Equitable Actions for Transformation (GREAT) database aims to collect as many examples as possible where city, state, and national leaders are making COVID-19 recovery plans in ways that could also produce benefits in racial, gender, and economic equity and in climate change mitigation and resilience. It is being maintained by the multisolving team at Climate Interactive, including Dr. Elizabeth Sawin and Cassandra Ceballos.

Climate This webpage aims to collect as many examples as possible where city, state, and national leaders are making COVID-19 recovery plans in ways that could also produce benefits in racial, gender, and economic equity and in climate change mitigation and resilience. It is being maintained by the multisolving team at Climate Interactive, including Dr. Elizabeth Sawin and Cassandra Ceballos.

Community Health Centers serve the primary health care needs of more than 22 million patients in over 9,000 locations across America. They play a crucial role in the nation's health care system, providing affordable health services for millions of uninsured, the working poor and newly jobless Americans. Health centers are good for the country. They lower overall health care costs, improve the health of their patients and generate economic opportunities in the communities they serve by providing jobs and training for local people. Community Health Centers create savings in health care every time a patient opts for an exam and treatment at the first sign of a health issue instead of waiting until a costly emergency room visit or hospitalization is the only option. Each health center takes a tailored approach to meet the unique needs of the people in its surrounding community. That local approach to health care, combined with an emphasis on comprehensive preventative care, generates $24 billion in annual savings to the health care system - for the American taxpayer, local, state and federal governments and public and private payers alike.

Did you know your zip code can predict how long and how well you live? Learn why in the all-new multimedia exhibit "Health Happens Here." Discover what Californians are doing to build health in communities across the state in this interactive journey through all the places and all the ways health happens in California. Through a series of high-tech games and interactive stations, visitors explore key factors that affect health beyond traditional diet and exercise while earning points that can be donated to 1 of 10 charities to make health happen for all Californians. Engaging and educational fun for the entire family, "Health Happens Here" was developed in partnership with The California Endowment and is a national award-winning, ongoing signature exhibit -- only at The California Museum.

California Forward (CA FWD) leads a statewide movement, bringing people together across communities, regions and interests to improve government and create inclusive, sustainable growth for everyone. A 501(c)(3) organization, CA FWD drives collective action to identify solutions that can be taken to scale to meet the challenges the state is facing. The organization is driven by the belief that the collective impact of regional solutions across the state will help ensure the economic, environmental and social prosperity of all people.