As a follow-up to Monday's post, the two top finishers in the Chicago mayoral election were Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle. They will meet in an April runoff. During the election I was down in Miami speaking at the Knight Foundation's annual Media Forum. I was honored to be invited to participate and was on a panel devoted to smarter cities. Here's the video of our session. If the video player doesn't display for you, click over to watch on You Tube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1_tITUf9wQ … [Read more...]
Archives for February 2019
Don’t Fall in the Branding Trap
My latest piece is online in City Lab. It's another look at urban branding. Here's an excerpt. The problem with the typical approach extends beyond just marketing. It has tangible consequences. A brand is really a city’s conception of itself. By selling itself as a facsimile of something its not, a city ends up turning that into reality. Thus, so many urban places today seem vaguely the same—a blur of Edison-bulbed eateries and mid-rise “one plus five” apartment buildings (in which up to five stories of wood frame construction are built atop a … [Read more...]