About this series
What is a Citistates Report?
Syndicated columnist Neal Peirce and his colleague Curtis Johnson give “outsider” views on the future prospects of U.S. urban regions. This is their first report to revisit an urban region that was the subject of a previous analysis. In 1995, their “Peirce Report” ran in four installments in the Salisbury Post and five other newspapers in this region. (Access the original Peirce Report at www.ui.uncc.edu.) As in 1995, news outlets throughout the 14-county region are publishing this series.
The UNC Charlotte Urban Institute sponsored the report, with a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
What’s a “citistate?”
“Citistate” is a term Peirce and Johnson coined to describe how metropolitan regions operate in the global economy. Here’s their definition: “A region consisting of one or more historic central cities surrounded by cities and towns which have a shared identification, function as a single zone for trade, commerce and communication, and are characterized by social, economies and environmental interdependence.”
About the authors:
Peirce, Johnson and colleagues Alex Marshall and Farley Peters interviewed almost 200 people throughout the region last spring.
Peirce is an author and syndicated columnist on U.S. cities and regions. His books include “Citistates,” “Boundary Crossers” and “Century of the City: No Time to Lose.”
Johnson is the co-author of “Disrupting Class,” “Boundary Crossers,” “Citistates,” and “Century of the City.”
Marshall is a New York-based writer on planning, architecture and transportation. His books include: “How Cities Work,” and “Beneath the Metropolis.” Peters is a public policy specialist who manages the Citistates Group.
Coming up:
Oct. 12: How should the Charlotte region grow?
Nov. 16: Downtowns ó where do we go from here?
Dec. 14: Growing green is a necessity.