Urban Markets Initiative Launches UrbanMarketsLab

Here's an important announcement from the Urban Markets Initiative of the Brookings Instittution.

Announcing the soft launch of http://www.urbanmarketslab.org/. Register here to provide your input for this virtual community

The Urban Markets Initiative is actively soliciting input to refine its new web portal, designed to accelerate solutions for information gaps in urban markets. The site, http://www.urbanmarketslab.org/, will officially launch on October 18, 2007 at the Urban Markets Initiative Forum entitled “Connecting Communities: Using Information to Drive Change.”

This site responds to the articulated need for a portal to connect to news, to colleagues, and to an information toolbox to drive community change. With competition ensuring a wide choice of technology solutions, it is vital that the community development industry makes it easy for its information users to find the best solution for their needs.

Over the next several months the Urban Markets Initiative will continue to add tools and develop a fully searchable toolbox, moderators for facilitated discussions will be chosen, and opinions on usability will be solicited to improve the site. Please register here to join the collaboratory if you have not already done so.

"Making data, information, and tools more transparent are important steps towards harnessing market forces to fundamentally improve neighborhoods and the lives of its residents." said Alyssa Stewart Lee, acting director of the Urban Markets Initiative and founder of http://www.urbanmarketslab.org/. “We know that while this site will be important for all American communities, those that suffer from poor information, like urban markets, will be significant benefactors.”

The mission of the Urban Markets Initiative is to improve the quality of the information available on urban communities and use it to unleash the full power of those markets while connecting them to the economic mainstream. The Urban Markets Initiative (UMI) was founded by Living Cities, due to the core belief that information and new information tools are critical to increasing market and public investment in urban neighborhoods. Living Cities is a partnership of leading foundations, financial institutions, nonprofit organizations and the federal government that is committed to improving the vitality of cities and urban communities. The Urban Markets Initiative is housed in the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution. http://www.urbanmarketslab.org/ is powered byKnowledgeplex.