The Innovations Building the Next Economy in 2012

The Atlantic Cities is beginning a multi-day series aimed at showcasing ideas from state and metro-level bodies who, unwilling to wait for Washington's lead, are moving ahead with plans to "boost exports, strengthen the clean economy, expand innovation capacity and train the next generation of workers."

Two of ten articles have been run. The innovations featured in these two and the remaining pieces, to be posted in the coming days, were selected, "based on their ability to help create jobs and contribute to a stronger economy as well as their reliance on collaboration across the public, private, nonprofit and (in some cases) academic sectors. In choosing these innovations, we focused on efforts that were emblematic of the next economy and offered promising models that could be replicated in other states and metropolitan areas and scaled up by federal action.