WHY SOUGHT-AFTER CITY PROGRAM?
Welcome! The Sought After City Program is a data-driven approach that teaches cities to attract and retain talent so they gain a deeper understanding & appreciation for where they live & work.
This programming helps civic leaders attract & retain residents by ensuring that people understand and appreciate where they live & work. This builds a stronger sense of community, promotes local businesses & organizations, increases the number of engaged & informed residents, encourages collaboration & inclusion — and basically, get’s people to love where they live.
The Sought After City Program will help your city tell its story to its residents & workers, elected officials, students, funders, and everyone that benefits from truly understanding, connecting with, and loving their city. When residents care about their cities, we all win!
“City Institute helped inspire the Akron team to not only think differently about the way we tell our “Akron” story within each of our organizations, but the experience led us to think about how we can collectively work to tell those stories in a more impactful and experiential way.””
IS THIS FOR MY CITY?
Whether you’re a 60,000-person town with a great historic main street like Pontiac, MI, a 200,000-person city that saw its peak population in the mid-20th century like Akron, OH, or a large growing city that wants newcomers to feel engaged enough, they decide to stay like Portland, OR, there is always an opportunity to get more people living, working & connecting with your city.
Unexpectedly, when attracting and retaining talent, jobs, the economy, and safety are not among the top drivers. Studies show that the “drivers that create emotional bonds between people and their communities are consistent in virtually every city and can be reduced to just a few categories. Rather, people consistently give higher ratings for elements that relate directly to their daily quality of life: an area’s physical beauty, opportunities for socializing, and a community’s openness to all people.”
So, if you are an economic development professional, chamber of commerce executive, Main Street Coordinator, DDA Director, or anyone ready to get their residents more engaged — fill out this inquiry form to learn more!
In the meantime, download our guide of 8 Ways to Attract and Retain Talent below.
complete the FOLLOWING form
A direct link will pop up for you to download the guide!
“As cities begin thinking of themselves as engaged in a relationship with their citizens, and citizens begin to consider their emotional connections with their places, we open up new possibilities in community, social and economic development by including the most powerful of motivators—the human heart—in our toolkit of city-making.” — Peter Kageyama, For the Love Of Cities
