Improving Cities By Degrees

Carol Coletta explains how improving education, lowering VMT and alleviating poverty by as little as 1% each could mean billions of dollars for cities.

1 minute read

April 7, 2010, 12:00 PM PDT

By Tim Halbur

AT CEOs for Cities, where Coletta is president, they refer to this margin of improvement as the City Dividend.

At a recent speech, Coletta explained: "As we toured 105 cities last year, we were able to show each metro area what their own local City Dividends amounted to. And in all cases, they were substantial. In Chicago, achieving the City Dividends – those relatively small improvements in performance in three key areas – is worth $7.2 billion. In Dallas, Texas, it's worth $4.6 billion. In San Jose, home to Silicon Valley, it's worth $1.4 billion.

In fact, in most communities, the Talent Dividend alone was worth more than the payroll of the largest private employer in the metro area."

FULL STORY: Carol Coletta: Innovative Cities

Tuesday, April 6, 2010 in The Urbanophile

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