Aaron M. Renn is an opinion-leading urban analyst, consultant, speaker and writer on a mission to help America’s cities and people thrive and find real success in the 21st century. He focuses on urban, economic development and infrastructure policy in the greater American Midwest. He also regularly contributes to and is cited by national and global media outlets, and his work has appeared in many publications, including the The Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
THE FUTURE OF What’s Happening Now
The route to trust in our institutions is through candor, competence and a clear sense of mission. Two examples, from Indiana and West Virginia, show how trust can be rebuilt one careful step at a time.
THE FUTURE OF Community Design
Urban and suburban America need each other more than ever. The coronavirus is making their relationship difficult as remote work changes the status quo and increases the competition for talent.
THE FUTURE OF Community Design
Even before the pandemic wiped out ridership, the systems were struggling to attract riders. Cities should be open to questioning the fundamentals of how they operate and fund their systems.
THE FUTURE OF What’s Happening Now
While it's helped a lot of Americans who are displaced from their offices get their work done, it's fallen short in areas like education and disease tracking and has once again highlighted the digital divide.
THE FUTURE OF Community Design
After decades of revival, they've been dealt severe blows across multiple dimensions by the coronavirus pandemic, putting them in danger of a period of extended decline.
The coronavirus has revolutionized how Americans work and those changes could be permanent. For many organizations, this coronavirus-caused shift to working from home could be a welcome excuse for change.
THE FUTURE OF What’s Happening Now
It may not always look pretty, but the American system of federalism creates opportunities to try different things and pick up the slack when there's a shortfall at one level of government.
The real estate industry is quickly changing as property technology (proptech) becomes more pervasive. This panel discussion, moderated by Aaron Renn, covers the changes that have happened and those that are yet to come.
THE FUTURE OF Community Design
As the "smart city" movement has progressed through three distinct waves, local governments have found themselves increasingly struggling to manage the changes that alter many aspects of urban life.
Is talent the most important factor? Taxes? Crime? It's a long list.
Most places were never going to land the company’s next headquarters. But there are still some key takeaways for them.
Before we invest in new infrastructure, we need to maintain and update what we have.
Coastal cities have disproportionately thrived thanks to economic centralization. Yes, the marketplace is to blame, but so is federal policy.
It wouldn’t be a panacea, but it’s an option that needs to be on the table.
In broken communities, the focus should be on social capital -- not just the economy.
Sometimes a person and a city just aren’t right for each other.
It served our ‘maker’ cities well for a long time. Now it holds them back.
In many places, they're trying to like never before.
The Chicagos and Cincinnatis of the world are more vulnerable than they realize.
Understanding how some cities have transformed shows why focusing on the little things can help struggling places survive and thrive.
To thrive in today’s world, they need to connect with immigrants.
The 20 percent who run America need to start paying serious attention to the plight of the middle and lower classes.
The shift from a manufacturing-based economy to a technology- and services-based one hasn’t been kind to the middle and working classes. That won’t change anytime soon.
Cities tend to favor building stadiums and convention centers over investing in education or human services. It's an understandable but troublesome trend.
When lower-income Americans move, it's seen as a result of displacement instead of opportunity. This negative perception needs to change.
In our nostalgia for the postwar era, we ignore some things that weren’t so good.
Drugs, crime and the social ills long associated with urban areas have migrated to rural America, and it's having a profound effect on the economy.
Much of what used to happen only in the biggest metropolises is spreading out.
Will small cities be able to exploit technology the way bigger cities have?
Rahm Emanuel's failure to avoid a runoff has less to do with him and more to do with Chicago's problems, which run deeper than many want to acknowledge.
Despite many perceptions, entrepreneurship and self-employment have been on the decline for years, especially among Millennials.
The media attention on Ferguson, Mo., one of the 90 jurisdictions in St. Louis County, has also brought attention to consolidation -- a touted solution to government ills.
How the Indiana city that was the center of the auto industry collapse became an unlikely poster child for long-term fiscal sustainability.
Many municipalities struggle to identify their uniqueness and instead try to market themselves for having things that you can find anywhere.
A poor economy and all the problems that come with it actually benefit some people, giving powerful players less incentive to improve the status quo for the rest.
Cities aspiring to prominence on the global stage are overlooking a key economic development strategy.
Just as seeds need fertilizer to grow well, innovation requires nurturing too.
Troubled post-industrial places need help building better connections with more successful cities.
Cities worry a lot about losing talented people, but few of them do much to attract new people. A sales mindset needs to be part of the culture of the community.
A city that's growing can spend more money while keeping taxes low. But when the limits of growth are reached, it will need to reinvent itself.