New Community Paradigms

The Council of Economic Advisers, an agency within the Executive Office of the President, is charged with offering the President objective economic advice on the formulation of both domestic and international economic policy. The Council bases its recommendations and analysis on economic research and empirical evidence, using the best data available to support the President in setting our nation's economic policy. The Council is currently comprised of a Chairman and two Members. The Chairman is Jason Furman. The Council's members are Sandra Black and Jay Shambaugh. The Council is supported by a staff of professional senior economists, staff economists and research assistants, as well as a statistical office.

Through SC2, 19 federal agencies work together in partnership with committed city leaders as they implement locally driven economic visions. SC2 does not involve new federal money nor is it a top-down approach. Based on a city's local vision and its request for federal involvement, SC2 seeks to support each city by increasing federal-local collaboration and improving how the federal government invests in and delivers technical assistance to advance locally driven economic development and job creation goals.

A growing number of places recognize that being welcoming leads to prosperity. Welcoming America provides the roadmap and support they need to become more inclusive toward immigrants and all residents. Launched in 2009, Welcoming America has spurred a growing movement across the United States, with one in eight Americans living in a Welcoming Community. Our award-winning, social entrepreneurship model is beginning to scale globally. A non-profit, non-partisan organization, Welcoming America is proud to support the many diverse communities and partners who are leading efforts to make their communities more vibrant places for all.

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.

NRDC just released its Fourth Annual Energy Report: Accelerating Into A Clean Energy Future. The report explains the transition to clean energy is well underway, driven by a combination of market forces, state and federal policies, technological advancements, and strong public support in red and blue states alike.

Over the past 40 years, economic inequality in the United States has returned to levels last seen in the 1920s. Today, the United States is in the top quarter of the world's most unequal countries. Economic mobility-a child's likelihood of occupying a different position on the income ladder than his or her parents did-has fallen well behind Canada, Great Britain, and other advanced economies. And inequality has worsened over the course of the current economic recovery.

We continually build our catalog of resources to inspire and support you on your journey to apply the latest innovations in adaptive leadership. View the most up to date Pontifex Consulting (and partners) videos. Download our practical resources to illuminate concepts and provide you with concrete tips and techniques for building your adaptive learning skills.

Equity is more than the right thing to do-it is an absolute economic imperative. The National Equity Atlas is a first-of-its-kind data and policy tool for the community leaders and policymakers who are working to build a new economy that is equitable, resilient, and prosperous.

Founded in 1999, PolicyLink connects the work of people on the ground to the creation of sustainable communities of opportunity that allow everyone to participate and prosper. Such communities offer access to quality jobs, affordable housing, good schools, transportation, and the benefits of healthy food and physical activity. Guided by the belief that those closest to the nation's challenges are central to finding solutions, PolicyLink relies on the wisdom, voice, and experience of local residents and organizations. Lifting Up What Works is our way of focusing attention on how people are working successfully to use local, state, and federal policy to create conditions that benefit everyone, especially people in low-income communities and communities of color. We share our findings and analysis through our publications, website and online tools, convenings, national summits, and in briefings with national and local policymakers. Our work is grounded in the conviction that equity - just and fair inclusion - must drive all policy decisions.

But the good stuff only happens if these organizations know what the entire neighborhood actually needs. Sometimes they don't. And in those cases, it's not possible to vote them out or hold them accountable. If a nonprofit dissolves, it's hard to pick up the pieces quickly, because the infrastructure for a new organization has to be rebuilt from scratch.

We're innovators. We're curious. And we're dissatisfied with the status quo. We're dedicated to strengthening the field of practice that bridges health and communities. Bridging Health & Community aims to transform how we approach health so that it goes beyond health care and public health to include fostering community agency. Based in Seattle, WA, with an office in London, UK, we do our field-building work through convening and coaching. We share the fruits of our work with a view to further describing and strengthening the field of practice that bridges the health sector and those that foster community agency. We met through the Creating Health Collaborative, an international group of innovators exploring health from the perspective of communities. By sharing our work through the Collaborative, we learned of the critical link between a community's ability to make purposeful choices and its health.

We are a team of civil engineers, planners, and sustainability specialists with expertise in land use planning and zoning, municipal finance, transportation planning and design, stormwater management and green infrastructure implementation, and urban design and placemaking. But, design of elaborate, expensive infrastructure projects is not what we do. The leaders of our organization spent the majority of our careers with large firms designing complex, expensive projects, only to later realize we were making things more economically fragile and unsustainable. We acknowledged that before we could do more of the types of projects our communities need, we'd have to change how people think about the way we have been planning and building our cities and neighborhoods. Rather than sit back and wait, we started VERDUNITY to help lead this change.

SUBSIDY TRACKER 3.0 is the first national search engine for economic development subsidies and other forms of government financial assistance to business.

The TOD Technical Assistance Initiative is a project of the Federal Transit Administration administered by Smart Growth America that provides on-the-ground and online technical assistance to support transit-oriented development, improve access to public transportation, and build new economic opportunities and pathways to employment for local communities. Learn more about the project >>

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.

Across the U.S., local governments are beginning to include goals and objectives that promote public health into their comprehensive plans. These long-term plans impact how people make choices of where to live and how to get around, their ability to access healthy foods and opportunities for physical activity, and affect broader issues of social equity, clean air and water, and more.

The Planning and Community Health Center focuses its efforts into projects and policies that prioritize active living, food systems, and health in all planning policies.

The Health Inequality Project uses big data to measure differences in life expectancy by income across areas and identify strategies to improve health outcomes for low-income Americans.

Reinvent gathers top innovators in important conversations about how to fundamentally reinvent our world. We connect up a mix of smart, knowledgeable, innovative people from a wide range of fields to work on solving the big challenges of our time.

Tech entrepreneurs are using innovation to tackle some of the world's biggest challenges. We invest in teams with bold ideas that create lasting global impact.