Cities of Providence, Houston and Philadelphia Among Select Group of Five Prize Recipients

For more information, contact: Robert Krueger at 202-624-7051; email [email protected]

WASHINGTON (March 14, 2013) – Three Urban Land Institute (ULI) Rose Center for Public Leadership fellows were among the five winners in the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge. The mayors of Houston, Texas (Mayor Annise Parker) and Philadelphia, Pa. (Mayor Michael Nutter) were awarded innovation prizes while Providence, RI. (Mayor Angel Taveras) took top honors by receiving the Mayors Challenge Grand Prize for Innovation.

The five winning cities were selected from a pool of more than 300 applicant cities representing 45 states. The winning cities, chosen from a selection committee, were judged on four criteria: vision, ability to implement, potential for impact, and potential for replicability. Mayor Taveras and the city of Providence will receive $5 million to implement its initiative while Houston and Philadelphia will each receive $1 million to support the implementation of their innovative projects.

The winning idea from Providence, entitled “Providence Talks,” addresses early childhood education by combining a revolutionary approach with proven technology in order to measure word exposure for children in low-income households and help coach parents on closing the word gap. The Houston project, entitled “One Bin For All,” is an initiative that involves a public-private partnership that seeks transforms the city’s waste management system and sustainability practices by achieving a 75% recycle rate of all waste. Philadelphia’s winning idea, entitled “Philadelphia Social Enterprise Partnership,” looks to solve city procurement-related barriers to innovation by establishing a new system that allows entrepreneurs and social innovators to respond to RFPs and help generate solutions to the toughest urban challenges.

Through each city’s participation in the Rose Fellowship, ULI members helped the mayors and their teams address land use and community development efforts that will be further fueled by the Bloomberg investments. In Philadelphia, Mayor Nutter asked the ULI Rose Center team to address redevelopment in the historically disinvested North Broad Street corridor, a neighborhood that will benefit greatly from the lab for urban innovations. Mayor Annise Parker’s efforts at community development are visible in both her Bloomberg-funded project and the ULI Rose Fellowship team from Houston that focused on a comprehensive strategy for delivering city services in the Antoine corridor. ULI members helped Mayor Taveras during Providence’s Rose Fellowship by offering guidance on a strategy for the Olneyville Square neighborhood—a neighborhood where 3 in 10 children live in poverty–many of whom will benefit from the Bloomberg funded work that was announced this week.

“We’ve worked with these cities over the last four years, so we know exactly the kind of cutting-edge thinking and work comes out of their administrations,” said Jess Zimbabwe, executive director of the ULI Rose Center. “Mayor Nutter, Mayor Parker, and Mayor Taveras are all great leaders and the teams that they have surrounded themselves with reflect their ingenuity and hard-working approach to good city governance. ULI is proud to congratulate the Daniel Rose Fellows in Houston, Philadelphia, and Providence on this well-earned honor.”

The Daniel Rose Fellowship is a year-long program that benefits its participating fellows with leadership training and professional development opportunities, and benefits their respective cities with technical assistance on a local land use challenge. The mayors of four large American cities are invited to participate in the Rose Fellowship program each year. Mayor Nutter and a team from Philadelphia participated in 2009-2010, Mayor Parker and a team from Houston in 2010-2011, and Mayor Taveras and a team from Providence in 2011-2012.

The fellowship is the flagship program of the ULI Daniel Rose Center, established in 2008 by the ULI Foundation Governor Daniel Rose. The Center aims to empower leaders in the public sector to envision, build and sustain successful 21st century communities by providing access to information, best practices, peer networks and other resources to foster creative, efficient and sustainable land use practices.

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About the Urban Land Institute
The Urban Land Institute (uli.org) is a nonprofit education and research institute supported by its members. Its mission is to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide. Established in 1936, the Institute has nearly 30,000 members worldwide representing all aspects of land use and development disciplines.