Economist Joe Cortright has been a trusted guide for urban leaders for many years. For more than a decade, he has dissected the movement of young talent through America's big cities. He calcuated the Talent Dividend and the Green Dividend for cities. He developed a way to measure changes in vibrancy associated with creative placemaking and unpacked what's really happening in the poorest neighborhoods. He is one of the world’s experts on clusters and effectively presses the case on the value of difference to cities. This week, he strongly challenged a New York Times Magazine piece on Portland that claims the city suffers from too much talent. Those are among the many reasons I am excited to talk with Joe this week on 'Knight Cities.' He is an easy-to-understand economist who uses plain talk to discuss what’s important to the success of cities. You can follow us on Twitter at #knightcities or @knightfdn. And if you have ideas for people you'd like to hear more from, please email me: Coletta (at) knightfoundation.org.

Can a major art institution lead a city in the exploration of its most urgent economic and community development questions? If you talk to Deborah Cullinan, executive director of San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the answer you get is a resounding "yes." Deborah is using the contemporary arts center she leads to shape San Francisco's future. And it's not the first time Deborah has used her role as arts leader to change a community. She previously served as executive director of Intersection for the Arts, an arts-focused community development organization committed to radical partnership across sectors to achieve equitable community change. Intersection played a lead role on the 5M Project, a four-acre prototype for the next generation of urban development, in downtown San Francisco's Tenderloin District. Listen to my conversation with Deborah Cullinan.

The work we do, where we do it, who we do it for, how much of our time we spend on it, and why we work are all in flux. To understand where all of this is going, this week "Knight Cities" talks with Bryan Boyer, principal at Dash Marshall; a partner at Makeshift Society; and a member of the board of directors at Public Policy Lab. Bryan is both thinking and acting on the growth of the independent economy and what it means to America. His three-part meditation on the questions this new economy is raising appeared on Medium earlier this year while he was guiding Knight Foundation’s thinking on how to harness more talent in Knight cities. And he calls the startup of Makeshift Society in Brooklyn his exploration of what the 21st century chamber of commerce for the design community might look like.

As mayor of San Jose, Chuck Reed has confronted some of the thorniest issues facing cities: the need to renegotiate employee pensions, the tensions between wanting good urban planning and accommodating new corporate headquarters, the drying up of state funds, the need for cities such as San Jose to build strong brands. In this week’s 'Knight Cities,' Mayor Reed talks frankly about these and other challenges, along with one of the innovative ways he is tapping new talent for City Hall. He also gives voters advice on what to look for in a candidate running for mayor.

Copenhagen regularly tops the list of the world’s best cities. It is celebrated for its culture of conviviality, elevated by the large number of people walking, biking and lingering in the city’s streets and public spaces.

This week, we launch “Knight Cities,” a new weekly podcast that focuses on the people and ideas shaping our cities. Theaster Gates – Chicago-based visual artist, actor, singer, restaurateur, activist, academician and all-around urban transformer – is our first guest.