Citistates: How Urban America Can Prosper in a Competitive World
by Neal R. Peirce, Curtis W. Johnson, John Stuart Hall

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Book Reviews of Citistates: How Urban America Can Prosper in a Competitive World

Book Review: Metropolitan regionalism gets seminal review
Summary: 5 Stars

But citistate realities don't just apply to the larger regions -- the New Yorks, Los Angeles, Chicagos, Bostons of America, the Berlins, Londons, Hong Kongs, Shanghais of the globe. All metropolitan regions face stiff competition and challenges. Include the United States' metro regions under 1 million people and the count exceeds 80 percent of the nation's people.

To put a human face on this fast-paced urbanization, three members of the Citistates Group -- Neal Peirce, Curtis Johnson and John Stuart Hall-- coined the new term "citistates." In their words, citistates are "not just the center city, but the entire metropolitan region - the 'real city' made up of center city, inner and outer suburbs, and rural hinterland so clearly and intimately interconnected in geography, environment, work force, and surely a shared economic and social future."

The transformation is apparent across the Atlantic, where Europeans have begun to describe their continent as a hodgepodge of powerful citistates -- from Manchester to Stuttgart, Lyon to London, Milan to Marseilles. Like U.S. citistates, these metropolitan regions are making economic and cultural transactions with little regard to their own nation-state governments.

The Citistates Group associates see a shift in thinking from the familiar governmental paradigm -- federal-state-local -- to one focused on function: global-regional-neighborhood.

* Global because critical issues have worldwide implications -- global warming, economic restructuring, rapid global market repercussions.

* Regional because the metropolitan areas, or citistates, share areawide transportation systems, media outlets, medical assistance, goods, services, even crime. Peirce argues that the success of the regional system -- on every measure from workforce preparedness to the quality of the infrastructure -- determines how competitive and successful the citistate will be for all its citizens in the long run.

* Neighborhood because it is on the personal, community level that escalating U.S. social problems can ultimately be dealt with.

Citistates includes six case studies based on Peirce Reports for the leading newspapers in Phoenix, Seattle, Baltimore, Dallas, St. Paul and Owensboro, Ky. These popularly written analyses examine each region's special problems and suggest potential solutions tailored to the local situation. The goal in each series is to identify ways out of a region's dilemmas by tapping civic energies -- forward-thinking talents and skills in business, civic, academic sectors -- to create a more sustainable citistate in the next century.

In his review of the book, George Knight, executive director of Neighborhood Reinvestment, took note of the role of neighborhoods in civic renewal. "Peirce gives full credit to community-based development organizations for revitalizing some of America's most devastated neighborhoods."

The book's wind-up chapter includes an 8-point formula for "citistate cohesiveness and strength." -- Craig Anthony Thomas, Senior Research Associate, The Citistates Group

Summary of Citistates: How Urban America Can Prosper in a Competitive World

"Neal Peirce is the best writer on urban affairs in the country". -- Henry Cisneros, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

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