Cities
Our goal is to understand how civil society organizations differ across cities
Our seven metropolitan regions provide a unique landscape for our research. The cities are consequential “lifestyle” cities, noted for their quality of life, attention to public health issues, citizen involvement, and innovation. Although none are world financial capitals, they are all in the forefront of global rankings. They are places where people migrate to and then have to deal with a constant influx of people. San Francisco, Taipei and Shenzhen are tech centers; Seattle and San Francisco are liberal west coast cities, Vienna, Singapore, and Sydney are in nations with strong social safety nets. Seattle, Singapore, Sydney and Vienna are leaders in environmental sustainability. From its humble beginning as a fishing village, Shenzhen is now a mega-city, founded under China’s open door policy in 1978 as the first special economic zone. The stories of each are unique, but the framework provided by our study weaves together a rich tapestry of the complex relationships between nonprofit organizations and their urban environments.