About the Urbanophile
Aaron M. Renn is The Urbanophile, an opinion-leading urban success strategist and writer. He is on a mission to help America’s cities thrive in the 21st century global economy by discarding old stereotypes and adopting new strategies based in progressive planning, economics, and branding principles aimed at creating sustainable, everyday places for the majority of Americans to live, work, and visit on an ongoing basis. His particular focus is the oft-overlooked cities of the Midwest.
Renn offers innovative strategies for urban success found nowhere else on the web, in areas including architecture and design, art and culture, civic branding, demographic analysis, economic development, the global economy, historic preservation, land use, public policy, regionalism, strategic planning, talent attraction, technology, tourism, transportation, and urban culture. His insights are rooted in a 15 year career in management and IT consulting, where he was a partner at Accenture.
He has been featured numerous times in Midwestern and national news media (see Awards/Press). In March 2009, Renn was honored in a front-page story by the Chicago Tribune for winning first-prize in a Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce-sponsored contest to identify ways of increasing transit Chicago transit ridership to 1 billion annually while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
No stranger to the Internet or urban issues, in 1999 Renn launched one of the nation’s first blogs, The Weekly Breakdown, to monitor Chicago Transit Authority service.
In the technology field, Renn served as Director of IT Strategy for both Accenture and Focal Communications. He has also personally led several multi-million dollar technology-enabled business change programs.
Renn is also a longtime supporter of free and open-source software. He co-founded the GNU Classpath project that created the first open source Java runtime library and authored the gzip Recovery Toolkit, the only tool for recovering data from corrupted gzip archives, among other projects.
A native of Laconia, Indiana, a town of 29 people along the Ohio River, Renn grew up fascinated by those larger places known as cities, and made it his life’s preoccupation to learn what makes them tick. He currently resides in Chicago.
Beyond urbanism and technology, his interests include travel, reading, opera, running, independent film (especially Asian) and music, classic men’s tailored clothing, and good conversation with smart, passionate people.
You can reach Renn at arenn@urbanophile.com
About the Urbanophile
Aaron M. Renn is an opinion-leading urban success strategist and writer on a mission to help America’s cities thrive in the 21st century global economy. His particular focus is the oft-overlooked cities of the Midwest.
Contact
Please email before connecting with me on Facebook or LinkedIn if we don't already know each other.
Urbanophile in the News
Chicago Public Radio: Urbanophile Offers Solutions for Transit
Nuvo Newsweekly: Meet the Urbanophile
The Oregonian: Picture Perfect Portland?
Indianapolis Business Journal: Hotels Spark Expansion of Downtown Skywalk System
Chicago Public Radio: Vacancies Abound Before Chicago Rebounds
Governing: The Rise of the Megaregion
Upcoming Appearances
March 11 - Urban Land Institute - Minnesota Chapter
May 6 - Cincinnati Business Courier Commercial Real Estate Power Breakfast
Twitter Feed
RT @Sarah_Ashleen: Concrete House by BAK Architects, complete with concrete furniture: http://bit.ly/6THEPn Not as prison-y as you'd expect.
Ok, how about something more light-hearted? Brangelina sue News of the World over claims they are separating - http://is.gd/7Y52a
New Yorker Hatchet Job: New Orleans vs. India-no-place - http://is.gd/7Y0b3 (via @sinden)
Detroit Free Press Editorial - The future of Michigan's cities still shortchanged - http://is.gd/7XZGO (via @LetsSaveMich)
A call for "charter cities" in the developing world - http://is.gd/7XWuO - neocolonialism, treaty cities
Midwest Blogroll
- 12th and Main (KC)
- ArchitectureChicago PLUS
- Bill Testa Midwest Economy
- BlogKC
- Brewed Fresh Daily (Cleveland)
- Broken Sidewalk (Louisville)
- Building Cincinnati
- Burgh Diaspora (Pittsburgh)
- Chicago Carless
- Columbus Underground
- Detroit Blog
- Global Midwest
- Greater Youngstown 2.0
- I Will Shout Youngstown
- Milwaukee Talkie
- Pittsblog
- Politics and Place (Pittsburgh)
- Property Lines (Indy)
- Rust Wire
- St. Louis Urban Workshop
- The Heidelberger Papers (Indy)
- The Indy Cog
- The Skyline (Chicago)
- Twin City Sidewalks
- Urban Indy
- Urban Milwaukee
- UrbanCincy
- VanishingSTL