City: Louisville, KY
Workforce Development - Education - Urban
Date Published: October 2006

Metropolitan College was designed to support United Parcel Service (UPS) and their need for labor in their Louisville based distribution center. In order to prevent UPS from leaving Louisville and to satisfy their demand for trained workers, the City of Louisville created the Metropolitan College. This public-private partnership was created in conjunction with UPS, the University of Louisville, Jefferson Community College and Jefferson Technical College. In exchange for working 15-20 hours a week during the late shift (9pm to 4 am), UPS pays full college tuition for any employee attending one of the three participating institutions. Students can attend any of the three participating colleges and pursue a two or four year degree in one of 23 programs. Evening classes are available and a ‘special hours’ dorm has been created to accommodate the student’s unconventional working schedules.

City: Various, Maryland
Land Use - Public/Private Partnership - Housing
Date Published: October 2006

In 1997, lawmakers in the State of Maryland passed smart growth legislation in the cities in part to combat the problem of sprawling development in Maryland’s cities. Residential neighborhoods faced sprawl-related decline as homeowners relocated into the suburbs, although those moving to the suburbs often continued to work in the cities’ commercial centers. These people, driving long distances from the suburbs to the city each morning and from the city back to the suburbs at night, often spend over an hour commuting daily. Those residing and working in cities spend comparatively little time on the highway. Thus, sprawl feeds rush hour congestion, and compounds commuter headaches. To combat these problems simultaneously, State of Maryland Lawmakers adopted the Live Near Your Work Program (LNYW) as part of the Smart Growth Initiative.

City: Pittsburgh, PA
Workforce Development - Community Development - Urban
Date Published: October 2006

In 1968, amid riots and post-industrial depression, college student Bill Strickland founded Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild (MCG) as an after-school program teaching pottery skills to at- risk kids, seniors and the emotionally and physically handicapped. Recognizing the success of MCG through Strickland’s leadership, Bidwell Training Center (BTC), a vocational training program, asked Bill to take over the center, he immediately saw the power in the overlap. Today, although the two programs are run separately, they share common board members, the same president, and state-of-the-art facilities and cannot be viewed separately. Arts inform job training and economics drive art programs.

City: Louisville, KY
Education - Youth - Community Engagement
Date Published: October 2006

In 1998, The Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum began a youth initiative to educate, train, and empower underserved youth in the Chicago area, specifically in the area of radio broadcasting. The result of this initiative - Radio Arte - is a unique and successful model that has served the Pilsen/Little Village neighborhood of Chicago for over 6 years. Radio Arte WRTE 90.5 is the only bilingual (Spanish/English), Latino-owned, youth operated community radio station in the country. Radio Arte provides a needed medium by which the area Latino community can stay connected and updated on local community issues. It runs 24 hours a day and trains youth between ages of 15-21 in all stages of broadcasting, including running a radio station, production, on-air hosting, writing, promotions, etc.