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Thank you for the opportunity to speak at this critical juncture in the modern history of cities and nations.

In many respects, this Meeting of G7 Urban Ministers — the first ever — is the culmination of almost 50 years of research, thought, deliberation and discourse. Since the UN Habitat meeting in Montreal in 1976, networks of nations, cities and stakeholders have been working together to create a strong foundation for global action on sustainable urban development.

It is an absolute pleasure to be back in Barcelona, a city of breath-taking beauty, incomparable assets and kinetic energy.

I am here to speak about the kind of economy that this city and other leading global cities should strive to create for themselves — and for their regions and nations — in the midst of a waning pandemic and a rising global conflict.

IFF: Briefly, what is “the new localism”?

Jeremy Nowak: New Localism is the term we use to describe the shift in power that is taking place today from the Feds downward to metropolitan communities; horizontally across public, private, and civic networks; and globally along circuits of capital, talent, and innovation. For us, Localism does not refer only to local governments, but to the interplay of multiple sectors. Most importantly, we view New Localism as a problem-solving practice focused on the major challenges of our time, including growth, sustainability, and social integration.

We empty out The Urbanist closet to bring you some of the stories we’ve been working on, including: urban art in Toronto, architecture through the eyes of Claude Monet and a chat with Bruce Katz about his new book ‘The New Localism’.

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AS the Brexit deliberations unfold, the conventional wisdom is that the future of Britain will be decided by a small number of national elected officials responsible for negotiating the contours of the final relationship between Britain, Europe and the rest of the world. The Brexit game, one would conclude, is a game played exclusively by the few and the powerful.

The Miller Center for Public Affairs hosted a panel conversation on “Power in the age of populism” with author Bruce Katz Friday. The conversation focused largely on the concept of power cities, or cities comprised of innovative ideas and financial sustainability.

The conversation discussed key points in Katz’s recent book “The New Localism: How Cities can Thrive in the Age of Populism,” co-written with Jeremy Nowak, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Drexel University’s Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation. The conversation focused particularly in on the shift away from cities dependending on the national government.

Bruce Katz, Centennial Scholar at the Brookings Institution, and Jeremy Nowak, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Drexel University’s Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation, argue in their recent book, The New Localism: How Cities Can Thrive in the Age of Populism, that the power to create social, economic and environmental change lies in the hands of a new kind of localism. Cities and communities are emerging as innovators and problem-solvers to address everything from social inclusion to environmental sustainability despite their being limited in these roles by fiscal distress. While not a replacement for the essential functions of  federal governments, Katz and Nowak argue that this new localism is the ideal complement to an effective federal government. Indeed, they argue it is an urgently needed remedy for national dysfunction.

We interviewed Jeremy Nowak to learn more about how he thinks the new localism will shape 21st century urban places in an environment of municipal fiscal distress.

In a time of national dysfunction and, frankly, gloom, our best hope for our society lies in our cities and metropolitan areas. That’s the message of the newly released book The New Localism, by Bruce Katz, the noted urbanist at the Brookings Institution, and Jeremy Nowak of Drexel University’s Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation. Based on their detailed research into urban trends and initiatives in the United States and around the world, with case studies of Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Copenhagen, and other cities, the book describes the shift from outmoded hierarchical models of national governance to more flexible, networked, multi-stakeholder models of local and metropolitan governance.

In this period of political, economic, and technological upheaval, Bruce Katz believes we should look to cities to solve societal challenges. Katz is The Brookings Institution’s first Centennial Scholar and author of “The Metropolitan Revolution” and “The New Localism.” He shared his message about empowering cities at a Downtown Seattle Association event last week. Katz urged Seattle to create more intentional public-private partnerships to better aggregate and distribute the massive wealth generated in the city by industries like tech and healthcare.