Above: Children enjoying a walk in El Pueblo, Los Angeles. Photo credit: 8-80 Cities. As a passionate advocate for cities, Gil Penalosa has been on my radar for a long time. His work as commissioner of parks, sport and recreation in Bogota, Colombia, is legendary. And as a regular at Miami’s monthly Critical Mass bike ride, I am envious of […]
Article · April 2, 2014 by Carol Coletta
Carol Coletta & Andres Duany Webinar from Knight Foundation on Vimeo. With the support of Knight Foundation, Lean Urbanism is beginning to make small possible in the U.S. As work gets underway, architect Andrés Duany attempted to demystify the topic during a webinar with me last week. According to Duany, Lean Urbanism is a means […]
Article · March 10, 2014 by Carol Coletta
Photo credit: Knight Foundation on Flickr. How do we make our communities more successful? At Knight Foundation we’re constantly thinking about that question, what community success means to us as an institution and what it means in 26 cities across the country where we have deep local roots. It’s an issue Knight will return to time […]
Article · March 6, 2014 by Carol Coletta
Photo credit: Marvin Shaouni via Flickr. The national conversation on gentrification has suddenly intensified, with new voices questioning the nature of its impact. Stories in The New York Times, New York magazine and on NPR are sporting some surprising headlines that essentially ask, is gentrification in communities all bad? I believe we need to consider the question in a different frame. […]
Article · March 3, 2014 by Carol Coletta
Photo credit: Knight Foundation on Flickr. “Big Civic” is disappearing. The days when CEO roundtables, mayors for life or a few big foundations were the primary makers in our cities have passed. Now, getting more people into city-building is fundamental to making communities that work for the 21st century. Making cities today is all about robust […]
Article · February 19, 2014 by Carol Coletta
The arrival of a new year always prompts a deluge of lists talking about cities: places to visit in the coming year, places where it’s most expensive to live, places where it’s cheapest to live. But attention to cities shouldn’t be a fashion of the moment. It’s an everyday commitment that is essential to making […]
Article · January 21, 2014 by Carol Coletta
Benjamin de la Peña recently joined Knight Foundation as director of community and national strategy. Below, Carol Coletta, vice president for community and national initiatives, interviews de la Peña about the transition to Knight from his role as associate director for urban development with the Rockefeller Foundation. Carol Coletta: You’ve spent your last few years at Rockefeller […]
Article · October 31, 2013 by Carol Coletta
Above: Charlotte, N.C. Photo credit: Flickr user James Willamor. One of the biggest stories about the way we live in the past decade has been the migration of college-educated young adults to the heart of U.S. cities. It is a trend that has been gaining momentum for the past 30 years, but it has exploded since […]
Article · October 14, 2013 by Carol Coletta
CityLab’s “The Rudiments of Growing Cities” from Aspen Institute on YouTube In his new book, author Benjamin Barber speculates about our future “If Mayors Ruled the World.” That could have been the theme for the discussions at CityLab. Organized by Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute, the two-day event earlier this week attracted mayors, […]
Article · October 11, 2013 by Carol Coletta
George Abbott recently joined Knight Foundation as special assistant to Carol Coletta, vice president for community and national initiatives. Below, Coletta interviews Abbott about the transition to Knight from his previous role with ArtPlace, a Chicago-based funding collaborative, and his other work. Carol Coletta: You worked as a field organizer on the recent presidential campaign. […]
Article · October 4, 2013 by Carol Coletta
Katy Locker, vice president of programs at the Hudson-Webber Foundation in Michigan, will join Knight Foundation as its Detroit program director on Sept. 16. Locker, a Detroit resident, is a highly experienced philanthropy and policy professional. She has a long history of giving back to Detroit. Below, she talks with Carol Coletta, Knight’s vice president for community […]
Article · August 6, 2013 by Carol Coletta