Announcements

 Partners for Livable Communities honors the leaders and communities that shape a livable, sustainable and equitable America

 

Download "Celebrating Champions of Livability" event program

 

 

Partners for Livable Communities (Partners), a Washington-based nonprofit, announces “Celebrating Champions of Livability,” a national awards program recognizing 23 individuals, four organizations and two communities for their role in shaping a more livable, sustainable and equitable America. Partners hosted all honorees and their guests for a luncheon and awards presentation at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on November 12, 2018.

“Celebrating Champions of Livability” recognizes national leaders who have embodied the time-tested elements that Partners has woven together to define livability since its founding in 1977. Those elements of livability include: concern for older individuals; equal opportunity for all; amenities, arts and culture as assets; innovative economic development strategies; and bold municipal leadership.

“We will pay tribute to the women and men who are creating livable communities for all,” said Robert McNulty, president and founder of Partners. “Their extraordinary work has set the standard by which civic leaders and policymakers in both the public and private sectors can initiate and carry out community improvement strategies.”

For 40 years, Partners has celebrated the leadership of people, institutions and partnerships that have discovered unique assets that communities can build upon to become a more livable place.

“Celebrating Champions of Livability” will be emceed by Peter Harkness, founder and publisher emeritus of Governing magazine, and the Honorable Glenda E. Hood, who served as Florida Secretary of State and was the first female mayor of Orlando.

America’s Most Livable Community Award

• Boise, Idaho
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Bridge Builders Award

• World Central Kitchen and José Andrés, Chef/Owner, ThinkFoodGroup, and Founder, World Central Kitchen

Investor in America Award

• John Taylor, President and Founder, National Community Reinvestment Coalition
• Omaha Public Schools Foundation

Leader for a Livable, Equitable and Sustainable America

• Nancy LeaMond, Executive Vice President, Chief Advocacy and Engagement Officer, AARP
  
• Honorable Henry L. Marsh, III, Former Mayor, Richmond, Virginia, Former Virginia Senator, and Civil Rights Activist
• Honorable William K. Reilly, Former Administrator of Environmental Protection Agency, and Former President World Wildlife Fund
• Ronald Lee Fleming, Urban Planner and Designer, Preservation Advocate, and Environmental Educator and Critic
• Robert Grow, CEO, Envision Utah
• Daphne Kwok, Asian American and Pacific Islander Advocate
• Honorable Parris Glendening, Former Governor, State of Maryland
• Honorable Glenda Hood, Former Mayor, Orlando, Florida, and Former Secretary of State, Florida
• Carol Bebelle, Co-Founder and Executive Director,  Ashé Cultural Arts Center
• Neal Peirce, Urban Affairs Journalist
• Jeremy Nowak, Founder, The Reinvestment Fund (In Memoriam)
• Jane Chu, Former Chair, National Endowment for the Arts
• Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Principals, DPZ Architects
• William Struever, Principal, Cross Street Partners

Entrepreneurial American Leadership Award

• Honorable Jacob Day, Mayor of Salisbury, Maryland
• Tina Shelvin Bingham, Executive Vice President, McComb-Veazey Neighborhood Coterie
• Severine von Tscharner Fleming, Director, Greenhorns

John Parr Award

• Tyler Norris, Chief Executive, Well Being Trust

Culture Builds Community Award

• EYA LLC and City of Alexandria Archaeology
• Rondell Crier, Artist

Ageless America Award

• Sandy Markwood, Chief Executive Officer, National Association of Area Agencies on Aging

About Partners for Livable Communities
Since its founding in 1977, Partners for Livable Communities (Partners) has helped communities set a common vision for the future, discover and use new resources for community and economic development and build public/private coalitions to further their goals. Partners promotes livable communities through technical assistance, leadership training, workshops, charrettes, research and publications. Partners is a nonprofit focused on improving the quality of life and economic and social wellbeing of low- and moderate-income individuals and communities.

Partners for Livable Communities
1429 21st Street NW
Washington, DC 20036
202-887-5990 x 108
www.livable.org

An aging revolution is changing the world, demanding that we look at our older years in a fresh way. A new book edited by Paul Irving, member of the Partners Aging Advisory Body and president of the Milken Institute, moves beyond the stereotypes of dependency and decline to do just that.

Exploring the vast potential of longer lives, The Upside of Aging: How Long Life is Changing the World of Health, Work, Innovation, Policy, and Purpose reveals how we can meet the challenges that accompany later life with positive solutions for people of all ages.

Irving and a distinguished group of contributing authors reveal the remarkable upside for health, work and entrepreneurship, volunteerism, innovation and education, as longevity and declining birth rates create a mature population of unprecedented size and significance.

“In the past century, discovery and innovation have enabled longevity that would be unimaginable to our forebears,” says Irving. “Increased longevity has contributed to unprecedented global economic growth and new opportunities for personal fulfillment that previous generations could only dream of.”

With a positive call to action, the book suggests new ways of thinking about aging. Among topics examined are:

The efforts of the City Leaders Institute team in Memphis, Tennessee were featured in the latest publication of Bridges, a quarterly journal of the St. Louis Federal Reserve.

The Plough Foundation and their program associate, Katie Midgley, have been leading the way to prepare Memphis for the increase in the number and share of older adults in the population. After researching the availability and quality of existing services as well as commissioning a survey of 500 older adults within the county, Plough identified home modifications supportive of the ability to age in place as its top priority within its aging agenda.

Memphis is participating in Partners for Livable Communities and MetLife Foundation’s City Leaders Institute on Aging in Place. The program is in its second year and has worked in fifteen communities across the country.

The Memphis team is working to develop a resource for older adults in Shelby County that will determine an individual’s home modification needs, direct the individual to services that can perform the modifications, and provide funding for those older adults unable to afford the modificiations needed to allow them to remain in their home for as long as possible.

Read more about the efforts in Memphis and the City Leaders Institute: The Graying of America: Preparing for What Comes Next (Bridges Fall 2013).

Learn more about the City Leaders Institute.

Check out the Plough Foundation website.

“I know that we—the American people—have the ability: to lead the world; to meet today’s energy challenges; to cross the bridge to a cleaner, more secure world; and most importantly, to leave our grandchildren with a place where they can thrive.” – Jim Rogers at the 2012 Democratic National Convention

After welcoming and thanking all those who helped make the 2012 Democratic National Convention possible in Charlotte, North Carolina, Jim Rogers, co-chair of the Charlotte Host Committee at the Convention, began his address by proclaiming that he was not there as a, “Democrat, Republican, policy pundit, or CEO,” but rather, he was there as a concerned grandfather.  Rogers continued with his speech by calling for a more broad based long-term effort toward a future of affordable, reliable, and cleaner energy. He went on to state that, “energy is more than a partisan issue. It’s an American issue. And a global issue.” 

Jim Rogers’s commitment to identifying and implementing better practices for cleaner and more efficient energy sources has made him a leading figure in not only the energy industry, but the entire environmental movement.  As chairman, president, and CEO of Duke Energy, one of the nation’s leading energy providers, Rogers’s prestigious career in the world of energy and politics began after being hired as an Assistant Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, where he advocated for the state’s consumers in gas, electric, and telephone rate cases. He was then appointed to Deputy General Counsel for litigation and enforcement for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and Executive Vice President of interstate pipeline for the Enron Gas Pipeline Group. After joining PSI Energy as the company’s chairman, president, and CEO in 1988, he served as chairman and CEO of Cinergy for more than 11 years before its merger with Duke Energy.  

In addition, Rogers has been recognized as one of the most outspoken and respected figures worldwide in the energy industry. In 2011, Rogers was awarded the Asia Society of Washington’s International Business Leadership Award, as well as U.S.-China Policy Foundation’s Global Executive Leadership Award for his work with China to help strengthen the relationship between the two nations, and bring energy to the forefront of global issues. Rogers has testified more than 20 times before U.S. Congressional Committees, has spoken at international forums such as the United Nations General Assembly, the World Economic Forum, the Clinton Global Initiative, and in 2009, Newsweek named him one of “The 50 Most Powerful People in the World.”

Rogers has also done extensive civic work in his current hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, co-chairing the city’s $82 million campaign to construct a new cultural campus in uptown Charlotte, and by co-chairing Charlotte’s committee to bring the 2012 Democratic National Convention to the city. 

Duke Energy has been the largest electric power holding company in the United States for years, supplying energy to approximately 7 million U.S. customers, and was recently named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for North America for the seventh consecutive year.  With Jim Rogers leading the way, not only does Duke Energy have a bright future ahead of them, but the rest of the world, and especially his grandchildren do as well.

By Diana Nash of the Pink Line Project on July 12, 2012

There is a buzzword circulating in the DC arts scene that I had not heard about until I returned to the city two months ago. While the concept of using the arts to spur economic and community development is not new, DC is getting attention for the success of its “Arts and Culture Temporiums” since the first one launched along the H Street NE corridor in 2010. Temporiums fall under the larger category of the Temporary Urbanism Initiative, a project undertaken by the DC Office of Planning. The goal behind the initiative, and more specifically, temporiums, is to activate vacant or underutilized spaces by using them to showcase the talent of local artists and other creative entrepreneurs, along with the retail potential that lies within emerging neighborhoods. Think of them as “Pop Ups” that stay around a little longer and have greater potential benefits for the communities where they take place. Jessica Scheuerman, of Partners for Livable Communities, explains that temporiums allow people to “take risks, explore partnerships, and to commit to something” without the burden of a long-term commitment.  Temporiums connect creative people seeking affordable space in their neighborhoods with landlords who have the available space that they haven’t been able to lease. It is a smart and increasingly popular concept that lays the groundwork for longer-term collaboration between property owners and neighborhood entrepreneurs.

Building on the success of earlier temporiums, the Office of Planning is targeting four emerging creative neighborhoods to benefit from a $250,000 grant to the city from ArtPlace, an unprecedented new private-public organization. ArtPlace is part of a national “creative place-making” movement that aims to drive revitalization across the country with arts at the center of economic development. The launch of DeanwoodxDesign marks the next step in the OP/ArtPlace grant initiative.