conversationalists

Joe Cortright

Joe Cortright is principal of Impresa, a Portland based economic consulting firm specializing in cities, Its clients include city governments and national foundations from around the United States, and major corporations including Nike and Intel. Impresa has advised the National Governor’s Association, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; Impresa principal Joe Cortright has served as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and was named by Planetizen as one of the world’s 100 leading urbanists.

Joe Cortright is also director of City Observatory, a think tank focusing on urban economic issues founded with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.  City Observatory produces original research on what makes cities successful in the 21st Century, and offers daily commentary on a range of issues including economic opportunity, urban transportation, housing affordability and neighborhood change at CityObservatory.org.

Joe's work casts a light on the role of knowledge-based industries in shaping  regional economies.  His City Vitals report is widely used as a tool for benchmarking metropolitan progress.  Cortright has also written extensively on the migration of talented young workers among cities in a series of studies entitled The Young and Restless.  Cortright is an expert on industry clusters, having produced three studies published by the Brookings Institution, including detailed analyses of the geography of high tech and biotech clusters and a new, full-color comic book:  Clusters:  An Illustrated Introduction.   His work is quoted regularly in the media, in publications ranging from the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times to The Economist, Business Week and USA Today.

Prior to starting Impresa, Joe served for 12 years as the Executive Officer of the Oregon Legislature’s Trade and Economic Development Committee. Joe is a graduate of Lewis and Clark College and holds a Master’s degree in public policy from the University of California at Berkeley.

Liz Blume

Liz Blume is the Director of the Community Building Institute (CBI) at Xavier University. CBI is a partnership between Xavier University and the United Way. Liz has built her career blending community organizing principles with community planning processes. She is a planning professional with more than 30 years of experience in the field. Liz had led multiple city, county, and neighborhood planning processes, always with the voice of the community at the heart, and with an asset based lens. Liz has led research efforts on important issues facing many metropolitan areas today including affordable housing, urban education, land use, community and economic development, equity and community engagement. Liz has collaborated with the United Way of Greater Cincinnati, LISC Greater Cincinnati, and other partners in seven Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky neighborhoods on Place Matters, Cincinnati's version of a comprehensive community investment strategy. CBI has created quality of life plans, supported community organizing, coached community organizations, and been the lead evaluator for the Place Matters initiative for more than ten years. This important work has changed the way the Cincinnati region does community development.

Liz is the Co-Director of a Master's program in Urban Sustainability and Resilience at Xavier University. This interdisciplinary program combines principles from public policy, planning, and business to help students prepare for careers in environmental sustainability and resilience. Liz's work in this program is a natural outgrowth of her years of experience in urban settings in southwest Ohio. She has also served as the Planning Director in Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, and worked as a planning consultant throughout the Midwest.

Over her career, she has come to understand the systems at play in urban environments that produce just and sustainable outcomes for people and the communities they live in, and she also understands the systems that create poor outcomes that destroy community. Through her own work at CBI and her teaching at Xavier University, Liz is working to create more productive, sustainable, thriving urban communities that support the people who live in them. Liz is a frequent speaker on topics including, housing, community development, urban education, community organizing and engagement, and planning and public policy.