Next City announces the opening of the application process for our fall 2019 Vanguard conference in Sacramento, California. This conference is open to all national and international applicants. A group of 40 rising urban leaders will tackle challenges in California’s capital city from September 30 to October 3, 2019.
The Vanguard program will be run by Next City in partnership with the Sacramento Region Host Committee, and the official host of the conference is The Center for Regional Change at the University of California, Davis. Among the program’s sponsors are Kaiser Permanente, Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), Fulcrum Property and Tre Borden Co.
Sacramento, a city whose identity and economy has long been synonymous with state government, has enjoyed a cultural and economic resurgence. Young Bay Area professionals and entrepreneurs flock to the city as an affordable alternative to San Francisco’s stratospheric cost of living. Longtime residents are newly engaged in community activism. And organizations such as SMUD continue to innovate with sustainable solutions. Yet Sacramento is not without challenges that risk tempering its momentum. Vanguards will hear from those working to ensure that the city can rise up, leverage the region’s connectivity and diversity and create truly inclusive strategies and policies that offer a vision for other urban areas struggling with these issues.
Next City’s Vanguard program brings together 40 rising urban professionals working to improve cities. Solving urban problems means working across divides and breaking silos, so Vanguard convenes professionals across sectors, including architecture, art, civic technology, community development, entrepreneurship, government, transportation and urban planning. Each year, Next City selects applicants whose smart ideas for cities, experience in the field and ambition for the future all show great promise. The conference is free to attend, once selected as a member of the cohort.
Past Vanguards have worked for the Obama administration, founded successful city-focused startups such as Ioby and Fundrise, held municipal office, and climbed the ranks of influential organizations such as the Brookings Institution, the Urban Institute, Citi Group, Code for America, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Transportation Alternatives, Smart Growth America and the University of Chicago. Many come back to participate in subsequent conferences to connect and network with the incoming class. (To learn more about our Vanguard network, visit our interactive Vanguard map.) With more than 400 Vanguards participating over the last ten years, Next City has created a program that advances the nonprofit’s mission to inspire social, economic and environmental change in cities through media and events around the world.
The four-day Sacramento conference will include workshops, tours and conversations about the newest innovations and most pressing questions in urban development, infrastructure and public policy. Vanguards will have the opportunity to work with organizations in the city to devise solutions to local challenges. The program will culminate in the annual Next City Big Idea Challenge.
The Vanguard Sacramento application process will run from June 5, 2019, through July 22, 2019, at 11:59 eastern time. The application fee is $35, but a reduced early bird fee of $25 is available from June 5 through June 21. Visit our application page to apply.
Next City will also convene our first-ever regional Vanguard conference in Newark, New Jersey, from June 26 to 29; the Vanguards attending that conference all live or work in the greater New York Metropolitan Area.
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