Empowering Places

Welcome to the monthly Empowering Places newsletter, crafted by Resonance and read by more than 15,000 placemaking professionals like you.

Summer’s here and the time is right for celebrating our favorite places. The Resonance team is launching our annual America’s Best Cities next month at SelectUSA and at the Baltimore Region Investment Summit with our new client, The Greater Baltimore Committee.

In between summer vacations, we will be all over the world, at the Urban Land Institute’s Asia Pacific Summit next week in Tokyo, World Cities Summit in Singapore, and Select USA in Washington in June, Destinations International in Tampa in July, and the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) in Denver in September.

We also just unveiled the newest iteration of our WRLDCTY Urban Summit, taking place in Bilbao in October in partnership with Bilbao Metropoli 30. See below for more details!

THOUGHT READER

The cities that Americans want to live in now are different from the ones they’re moving to. Why?

Last month we shared some of our latest research for our upcoming 2024 America’s Best Cities report on the factors most highly correlated with the size of a city’s prime age population, spending by visitors and the number of businesses being formed.?

Long story short: we found that a post-pandemic convergence has occurred between the factors driving talent, visitors and businesses to cities. Essentially: people want to live where they like to travel.

In addition to this analysis and collection of data for these key performance metrics, our research partner Ipsos also conducted a survey in March of the U.S. population to find out which U.S. towns and cities Americans most wanted to live in and visit, and which towns and cities they thought had the most job opportunities.?

The results are fascinating, showcasing the aspirational brand glow around ”Superstar Cities” despite population declines.

Meanwhile, the explosive population growth in places like Dallas, Houston, Austin, Phoenix and Atlanta means that many of these cities have lost at least some of their affordability advantage and will now need to compete based on quality of place and economic opportunity. Doing so will not only help keep their new residents long term, but also attract the immigrants necessary to fuel the economy as the domestic population ages and retires from the workforce.

FREE VIRTUAL EVENT

WRLDCTY Urban Summit, powered by Resonance, is back

WRLDCTY 2024 takes place Oct. 9 – 10 in Bilbao and will be streamed free around the world. Resonance created the event in 2020 as a way to virtually gather a global community of urbanists pursuing inclusive, equitable and sustainable approaches to urban development.

Five years on, we are excited to partner with Bilbao Metropoli 30 and the inaugural The Bay Urban Visioning Awards to bring WRLDCTY to Europe for the first time.

Registration for the in-person event is now open. Book soon because tickets are limited.

Do you have a pioneering urban project that the world should see? The Bay Urban Visioning Awards can help get it in front of the planet's top city builders. Submit your application before June 10.

RESONANCE CLIENT NEWS

Destination Canada launches its new “Tourism 2030: A World of Opportunity” strategy

Resonance has collaborated with?Destination Canada?over the past two years on crafting the groundbreaking visionary roadmap launched last week.?

The “Tourism 2030: A World of Opportunity” strategy aims to elevate competitiveness and unlock new horizons for communities and businesses from coast to coast, to coast, with a firm focus on transforming the sector and catapulting Canada back into the top 7 global destinations by 2030.

PLACE STUDY

Costa Palmas brings the Sea of Cortez to a new generation of explorers?

In 2015, Resonance was engaged by Los Angeles-based developer Irongate to envision and create the strategy, place branding and real estate marketing for Costa Palmas, a 1,000-acre resort development on the Sea of Cotez in Baja, Mexico.

We developed a brand platform that positioned the destination as an off-the-beaten track Sea of Dreams on Cabo’s East Cape. Now with a Four Seasons Resort, an Aman, and an independently branded Casa Blake on the way, Resonance has been refining the brand to further elevate the look, feel and messaging of the brand reflecting its continuous growth towards peak luxury for generations.?

SENSES OF PLACE?

What’s inspiring our craft this month?

READ?

The 15-Minute City: A Solution for Saving Our Time and Our Planet is a timely tome from human city pioneer and international scientific advisor Carlos Moreno. The urban concept inspiring and triggering so many over the past few years is presented in an insightful, simple way demonstrating the quantifiable, research-backed benefits of having everyday destinations like schools, stores, and offices a short walk or bike ride away from home. Moreno also shares strategies for cities to recover and adapt to benefit residents, changing the habits of automobile-dependent city residents, and how to maximize social benefits of living in a human-centric city. Get it now.

WATCH?

Cities on Film?is a series of acclaimed urban-planning documentary films, presented by Planetizen Courses,?the online training platform for urban planning careers. Films explore?the evolving ambitions of urban planning from the prominent figures of history, to the contested spaces of present day.?Watch it now.?

LISTEN??

The new WRLDCTY Podcast, hosted by Resonance President & CEO Chris Fair, lets listeners in on vital conversations with the people working on the front lines of our cities with the urgency necessary to find solutions for a planet urbanizing at a frenzied pace. Every episode features an urban innovator and their mission to make our fast-growing cities as self-sustaining, equitable, inclusive and prosperous as possible, with plenty of takeaways to help empower your own urban innovation. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don’t forget to leave a five-star review!

???? Thanks for reading! If you have any questions about helping your city or community realize its full potential, connect with us anytime. We'd love to chat.

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