Last week at the United Nations’ Palais des Nations in Geneva, I had the honor of joining the Urban Economy Forum (UEF), UNU-INWEH, and the City of Lowell, Massachusetts, for a historic announcement: Lowell has become the world’s first Frontrunner City for Urban Transformation.
Lowell has always been a city of firsts. It was America’s first great industrial city, where innovation and community built prosperity together. Today, by becoming UEF’s first Frontrunner City, it has the chance to lead again—showing how mid-sized cities can create sustainable, inclusive, and tech-enabled economies that are truly future-ready.
Urban transformation is not just about jobs or buildings. It’s about ecosystems where infrastructure, sustainability, entrepreneurship, education, culture, technology, and community reinforce each other. The real challenge is designing investment frameworks that make these ecosystems thrive.
For me, the answer lies in partnership and alignment. We need blended capital—public, private, and philanthropic—guided by a shared purpose. Investment must deliver not only financial returns, but also social ones: equity, resilience, and opportunity for the communities that give cities their identity.
If we succeed in Lowell, the city can become a living laboratory, a place where inclusive and sustainable growth models are tested, proven, and scaled nationally and globally.
Lowell’s journey reminds us that revitalization is not only about rebuilding cities, but reimagining futures. If we align investment with inclusion, innovation with equity, and sustainability with purpose, the growth created here will ripple far beyond Lowell.
That is the promise of being a Frontrunner City—and it’s a promise worth committing to. Because in the end, I believe that everyone, no matter where they are born, deserves the opportunity to build a dignified, safe, and purposeful life in their own homeland.