Speaker Series: Joel Kotkin
August 2, 2007:
Internationally-Recognized Futurist Joel Kotkin
“Building the City of Aspiration”
In the first decade of the 21st Century, the future of American cities is attracting great debates. One notion is that to become a City of Aspiration, Atlanta and other urban areas must focus on providing the greatest number of opportunities to the broadest spectrum of residents. Kotkin believes that a city and region's ability to create jobs, offer affordable housing and generate entrepreneurial openings to a growing and highly diverse population are the surest signs of urban vibrancy. The City of Aspiration embraces the fundamental principle that one of the primary, historic roles of cities has been to nurture and grow a middle class - to be an engine of upward mobility.
About Joel Kotkin
An internationally-recognized authority on global, economic, political and social trends, futurist Joel Kotkin is an Irvine Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation and Presidential Fellow at the Hobbs Institute at Chapman University in Southern California.
Joel has completed studies on the future of several major cities, including New York, St. Louis, Houston, Phoenix, Laval (Quebec’s second largest city) and Los Angeles. Mr. Kotkin is the author of the best-selling books, The City: A Global History and The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution is Reshaping the American Landscape and regularly writes for The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. His work is available at www.joelkotkin.com.
Mr. Kotkin attended the University of California, Berkeley. A native New Yorker, he has lived in California since 1971. Married to Mandy Shamis, Joel has two daughters and lives in Los Angeles.
For more information:
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