Danville, Va is a city of more than 42,000 located in south-central Virginia region on the fall line of the Dan River. It’s location has played a role in its history, including its early dominance in tobacco and textile production and strategic positioning in the civil war and early rail line prominence. Today, it is […]
Heartland Forward is a think and do tank and resource for states and local communities in the middle of the country. We do this by studying broad economic trends and building data-driven and community-tested partnerships, programs, and policies to address the needs of the Heartland. Learn More.
The Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking aims to inspire public, private, and civic sector leaders to make transformative place investments that generate widespread social and economic benefits. Learn More.
Placemaking.Education is a collaboration between Town Team Movemen PlacemakingX. Over 2,700 people from 102 countries have taken a course or downloaded a resource since it launched in 2022. Our purpose is to: Gather and curate the most important placemaking concepts, suggestions and lessons learned into one place to make it easier and faster for people to learn about placemaking Learn […]
Economic growth in the United States in the 21st century has concentrated in fewermetropolitan areas that account for a disproportionate share of jobs, research anddevelopment (R&D), innovation, investment, and business growth in high-techindustries. This urban-led growth, driven by innovation centers and the creative class,has been well documented and is exacerbating a rural–urban divide unlike any […]
COVID-19 created unique challenges and opportunities for America’s micropolitan areas—towns with 10,000 to 50,000 residents and the outlying areas with close economic ties to those communities. In some ways, these challenges and opportunities rewrote the guide to micropolitan economic success, while in other ways they simply reordered the bullet points on that guide. “Most Dynamic […]
Understanding the dynamics of growth in a time of shrinking population is the subject of the new book by urban scholar Alan Wallach, Smaller Cities in a Shrinking World that promotes “networked localism”. Source: Governing, Alan Ehrenhalt, May 17, 2023 Read the full article.
Downtowns were some of the hardest hit areas of communities during COVID. What explains the recovery of some of these downtowns, but not others? And more importantly, what does recovery even look like? Source: Brookings, Tracy Hadden Loh, September 21, 2023 Read the full article.
Welcome to the Home of Future Thinking, where micropolitans unite to face the challenges of the future head-on. In our inaugural episode, we answer the following question – Are smaller communities equipped to face the complex challenges of our ever-changing world?
