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| What is different about this Website? City Solutions Network is focused on the information needs of a single group of clients around the world... urban decision-makers. These people include: mayors, provincial governors or premiers, senior executives of cities and their advisors, community leaders, and active citizens. However, anyone is welcome to visit and use the resources here. What will I find on the site? The site focuses on solutions to practical problems urban leaders and managers face. It has a bias in favour of "sustainable" solutions, that is, those which appear likely to last for a long time because they take environmental, economic, social and political factors into account, and approach them in a balanced way. The site is also focused on a range of evolving tough choices. These in turn are based on the daily experience of urban decision-makers around the world. Economic, environmental, and political factors need to be weighed carefully and balanced in making such tough choices. The site concentrates on "multi-hit" solutions which use the same political and financial resources to resolve several problems at once. How is the information available on the site organized? The Website is organized according to "streams" of the most relevant information for the most likely conditions faced in different types of cities... those associated with tough choices; those which link most directly to colleagues in other cities and in different geographic regions of the world; and those which guide a user most surely to the types of organizations, experts, and information resources they are looking for. It is the user who determines which "suite" of solutions they wish to draw upon, and how they wish to apply the results. Does the site evaluate the information it presents? Because this Website does not have a single sponsor or an advocacy point of view, it makes constructive but critical comments on the value of its offerings from a user perspective. If something here has limitations, these will be pointed out. The site as a whole is a reaction to the way the Internet is evolving... too much proliferation, too little integration and evaluation. What are the "tough choices"? While conditions and needs in different cities obviously vary greatly, analysis of many different cities reveals overall patterns in the choices leaders face.
Urban decision-makers have many "counsels to perfection" available, but not that much practical advice tested in similar conditions elsewhere. Some situations call for improvising on the spot. Others simply have no good solutions. However, where it appears no advice exists, this site will challenge practitioners in the field, as well as researchers, and professional consultants to come up with solutions for the future. The range and quantity of information on the Internet is changing daily. This site can only improve if users point out gaps and inaccuracies. A key feature of this site is that practical solutions from one city can be shared quickly with many others. There are already quite a number of "good practices" information bases in the field and these are offered as links too. What can I find Resource Information? The Resources Section or "Roadmap to Resources" draws on extensive research on Internet offerings over a period of seventeen months. It covers one or more of the following topics within each of the sectors addressed:
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