Joe Cortright is director of City Observatory, a think tank focusing on urban economic issues founded with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. City Observatory produces original research on what makes cities successful in the 21st Century, and offers weekly commentary on a range of issues including economic opportunity, urban transportation, housing affordability and neighborhood change at CityObservatory.org.

Joe Cortright has served as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and was named by Planetizen as one of the world’s 100 leading urbanists. Cortright is Chair of the Oregon Governor’s Council of Economic Advisers, a post he has held for 15 years under four different governors.

For two decades Cortright has led Impresa, a Portland based economic consulting firm specializing urban and regional development. Its clients include corporations, including Nike, Intel, the National Governor’s Association, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Joe’s work casts a light on the role of knowledge-based industries in shaping regional economies. Cortright has also written extensively on the migration of talented young workers among cities in a series of studies entitled The Young and Restless. Cortright is an expert on industry clusters, having produced three studies published by the Brookings Institution, including detailed analyses of the geography of high tech and biotech clusters. His work is quoted regularly in the media, in publications ranging from the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times to The Economist, Business Week and USA Today.