I have just received this exciting announcement from Natalie Raabe and am pleased to share it with you. As we proceed through the so-called “Age of Information,” an age that seems to be more like a blizzard each day, some sources are much more valuable than otgers. The Atlantic magazine offers an excellent case in point.

I urge you to click your way through the material that follows. Check out the resorces, become familiar with the options, and as you do so, put some white caps on your gray matter.

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TheAtlanticCities.com, the new digital media property of The Atlantic, is live online today.

With more than half the world’s population living in cities, the new site is dedicated to covering the global centers where we live, work, and play. Featuring the work of Richard Florida, economist, professor, and Atlantic senior editor, TheAtlanticCities.com explores and explains the most innovative ideas and pressing issues facing today’s cities and neighborhoods.

In addition to Florida,  TheAtlanticCities.com will feature leading voices in the urban planning and community building arenas. Regular correspondents will include: Allison Arieff, former editor-in-chief of Dwell magazine; Ryan Avent, economics correspondent for The Economist; Sarah Goodyear, former cities editor of Grist; Eric Jaffe, author and former staff writer for The Infrastructurist, and Matthew Ygelsias, blogger and fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. The site will also feature contributions from thought leaders and academics in urbanism, such as Bruce Katz, director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, and Don Carter, director of the Remaking Cities Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

The new site is edited by Sommer Mathis, the former editor of DCist.com who also worked at TBD.com and Washingtonian magazine, where she was online editorial director. Full-time staff includes Nate Berg, a four-year veteran of Planetizen, where he wrote, produced, and edited content about transit, the environment and urban planning. Berg has also contributed to The New York Times, Wired, Fast Company, and various design and architecture magazines. He is based in Los Angeles.

In addition to in-depth reporting and analysis on topics like jobs, commuting, housing, infrastructure, design, culture, and politics, TheAtlanticCities.com launches with a number of recurring features, including: “The Big Fix,” a weekly exploration of how cities attempt to solve problems, one issue at a time; “Democracy in America,” offering tales of the occasionally noble and often absurd nature of American civic life at the local level; and “Why I Love My City,” an interview series about all the reasons why we choose to make a particular place home.

The site also features one-stop landing pages for top U.S. and international cities, including key data and information as well as Florida’s original city and state rankings on everything from the healthiest places to live to the best cities for recent college graduates.

“We believe the challenges and opportunities facing cities merit deeper exploration on the web,” said Bob Cohn, editorial director of Atlantic Digital. “We aim to do that with intelligent, compelling, and entertaining coverage on a range of issues. I can already see that Richard and Sommer, supported by a talented corps of writers, make a killer team.”

“More than three billion people live in cities, with an estimated 60 million more moving to urban centers every year. As population and economic activity concentrates more and more into these rich, dense communities, the challenge of maintaining prosperity, vibrancy, and livability in all cities-not just a few great metropolises-becomes absolutely vital to the overall health of our society,” said Florida. “TheAtlanticCities.com represents an important platform by which we can help shed light on these critical issues, both nationally and globally.”

Dow, a long-time partner of The Atlantic, is the exclusive launch sponsor for TheAtlanticCities.com. Jay Lauf, publisher and vice president of The Atlantic said of the sponsorship, “We’re delighted to embark on a new chapter of the relationship we’ve had with Dow over the years and are grateful for their support of the launch phase of this exciting new venture.”

Florida was named a senior editor of The Atlantic in March and has a long relationship with the magazine, website and events division. He is Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and the founder of the Creative Class Group. He has written several national and international best-selling books including The Rise of the Creative Class, Who’s Your City?, and The Great Reset. He was named one of Esquire‘s ‘Best and Brightest’ and one of TIME Magazine’s top 140 Twitter feeds with more than 130,000 followers @Richard_Florida. His ideas are being used globally to change the way regions, nations, and companies compete.

Follow The Atlantic Cities on Twitter at @AtlanticCITIES.

About The Atlantic:

Since its founding in 1857 as a magazine about “the American Idea” that would be of “no party or clique” The Atlantic has been at the forefront of brave thinking in journalism.  One of the first magazines to launch on the web in the early 1990s, The Atlantic has continued to help shape the national debate across print, digital and event platforms. With the addition of its news- and opinion-tracking site,  TheAtlanticWire.com, and now TheAtlanticCities.com, The Atlantic is a multi-media forum on the most critical issues of our times, from politics, business, urban affairs, and the economy, to technology, arts, and culture. The Atlantic is the flagship property of Washington, D.C.-based publisher Atlantic Media Company.

Contact:

Natalie Raabe
Director of Communications
The Atlantic
(202) 266-7533
nraabe@theatlantic.com