http://www.innovations.harvard.edu This section has content related to economic and community development. Main subject areas include agriculture and food supply, arts and recreation, business incentives, civic engagement, community revitalization, cultural preservation, employment and labor supply, energy supply and distribution, entrepreneurship, housing, and poverty alleviation. en-us Copyright 2009, Government Innovators Network Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:38:00 -0500 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:38:00 -0500 info@innovations.harvard.edu http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/725205.html How communities can become social innovation hot spots. Communities—cities, towns, villages, regions—can create the conditions that stimulate social innovators to transform the performance of local systems like education, economic development, health care, and more. But in most places, civic leaders don't know enough about how to do this and often shortchange their efforts or ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/836783.html New exclusive nuPOLIS report describes initiatives, programs, and strategies you can use. In a new report, Sustainable Economic Development, nuPOLIS partner James Nixon details the comprehensive approaches that that cities and regions are using to build sustainable green economies. The paper, developed for the newly launched nonprofit Urban Sustainability Associates consulting service ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/654408.html The Rudy Bruner Awards honor well-designed urban spaces, the ones that create solutions to urban problems. The award is given out every two years and recognizes places that embody good planning and good design. Bruner Award winners have given back meaningfully to the community by creating social places for people to gather, by enhancing the economic life of the city and by rescuing and reusing ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/707604.html When New Orleans recovery czar Ed Blakely packed up his office earlier this summer and left the city he had come to fix, few outside the yet-to-heal region took notice. Buried under news of the current economic storm, the headline came and went like an obituary for a past-her-prime TV actress. Yet for those living here, the unexpected departure of the single official charged with making their hometown ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/756343.html Where they are, what they sell, and what else they do — an unexpected source of change. Three unexpected developments suggest that the supermarket, a local institution we take for granted, is at the cutting edge of community change. One supermarket chain moves into an underserved low-income urban neighborhood. Another defies the high-calorie, low-cost model of the American Diet ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/683445.html As U.S. cities respond to the challenge of global warming, they must grapple with economic and social inequities. Cities are the “front lines” of climate change—and they are preparing extraordinary actions to reduce carbon production and adapt to the unavoidable effects of global warming, such as rising sea levels. But, in our experience, few urban civic task forces, government ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/683441.html "Replication" is not about duplicating; it's about adapting—and knowing which pathway to scale you're on. It looked like a slam-dunk opportunity for social entrepreneurship: A nonprofit organization was given nearly $2 billion to replicate a model community center in some 30 communities. Yet this turned out to be a formula not for scaling up, but for trouble ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/687425.html The future is in the apps. I live in a rural community many hours from the urban places—Chicago, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids—I often visit for my work. Here in northern Michigan access to high-speed broadband is spotty or slow, nothing like the nearly ubiquitous presence in cities. Our small rural markets don't inspire investment in broadband infrastructure because ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/597117.html The purpose of this note is to help both local and national government officials think through possible strategies for addressing one of the fundamental issues facing Serbian municipalities today: How do Serbian local governments increase the revenues they need to improve their public infrastructure while simultaneously creating an environment favorable to private investment and local economic ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/626169.html In a neighborhood better known for its poverty and blight, a new apartment building in the South Bronx is garnering attention not only for its affordability, tasteful design, and sculpture garden, but also for its green features and sustainable elements. The Intervale Green complex, on Intervale Avenue, between Freeman Street and Louis Niñe Boulevard, is dispelling the usual assumptions associated ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/595801.html Two years ago, Anne Mahlum was taking her morning run through the streets of Philadelphia, passing as always the same group of homeless men on the corner of 13th and Vine. She usually waved and kept running. But one sticky July morning, Mahlum stopped and asked the nine men whether they would like to join her. This fortuitous conversation would be the beginning of Back on My Feet, a Philadelphia ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/143051.html The following information was released by Americans for the Arts: Americans for the Arts, the nation's leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts in America, announced today its policy recommendations to President-elect Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress, as they begin consideration of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. The nine recommendations detail how existing federal programs ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/710190.html Before innovation, a community needs the will to change...Once upon a time in a small community in a remote part of the country, a powerful official in the government at the nation’s capital arrived for a visit. Decades earlier, this official had been born in the hospital in the community.  He had lived in many other places, but still visited the village regularly. “Village ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/776479.html City government is a crucial player in sustainability, but it has to change its role and approach. As mayors and city managers in hundreds of U.S. cities, large and small, respond to the threat of climate change, the rising cost of energy, and the "green" values of more and more residents, they ask how to improve their communities' energy efficiency and environmental quality ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/766399.html nuPOLIS partner Alvaro Lima gets the spotlight in Neal Peirce's Citiwire.net column about transnational immigrants. BOSTON — Get ready for the century of the transnational man–or woman. Alvaro Lima offers a perfect example. He was born in Brazil, so he’s Brazilian. Having grown up in South America, he’s a Latino. But he’s the director of research for the Boston Redevelopment ...