Community development expert Ilana Preuss explains how local leaders can revitalize their downtowns or neighborhood main streets by bringing in and supporting small-scale manufacturing. Small-scale manufacturing businesses help create thriving places, with local business ownership opportunities and well-paying jobs that other business types can't fulfill.

Downtowns are more than economic engines: they are repositories of knowledge and culture and generators of new ideas, technology, and ventures. They are the heart of the city that drives its future. If we are to have healthy downtowns, we need to understand what downtown is all about; how and why some American downtowns never stopped thriving (such as San Jose and Houston), some have been in decline for half a century (including Detroit and St. Louis), and still others are resurging after temporary decline (many, including Lower Manhattan and Los Angeles). The downtowns that are prospering are those that more easily adapt to changing needs and lifestyles. In The Heart of the City, distinguished urban planner Alexander Garvin shares lessons on how to plan for a mix of housing, businesses, and attractions; enhance the public realm; improve mobility; and successfully manage downtown services. Garvin opens the book with diagnoses of downtowns across the United States, including the people, businesses, institutions, and public agencies implementing changes. In a review of prescriptions and treatments for any downtown, Garvin shares brief accounts—of both successes and failures—of what individuals with very different objectives have done to change their downtowns. The final chapters look at what is possible for downtowns in the future, closing with suggested national, state, and local legislation to create standard downtown business improvement districts to better manage downtowns. This book will help public officials, civic organizations, downtown business property owners, and people who care about cities learn from successful recent actions in downtowns across the country, and expand opportunities facing their downtown. Garvin provides recommendations for continuing actions to help any downtown thrive, ensuring a prosperous and thrilling future for the 21st-century American city.

Business expectations of their IT departments are simple: Deliver IT without fuss, get involved in achieving business results, and provide leadership. But while business emphasis is on business results and leadership, IT is focused on the technology. How to get your IT Department to Add Real Value to Business presents a practical framework that defines the roles and activities for the CIO to meet business expectations. It introduces a new approach to IT in large organizations, which shifts the focus from day to day technological operations to three critical areas of performance for IT: IT management, business results and information leadership. The concepts are simple and elegant but the implementation is increasingly demanding. However, these changes are essential if in-house IT functions are to survive and prosper in organizations. The author's framework has already proven itself in changing business and IT perspectives significantly. Large organisations have commenced the implementation process, and are reporting significant results. The book offers ground-breaking perspectives on the role of IT in organisations. These perspectives are finding favour with business and IT people alike. The book offers practical and anecdotal examples and plans to assist in implementing the framework.