• Worldwide demographic trends indicate an explosion in the number of cities and urban dwellers for the foreseeable future. Our planet faces an increasingly urban future with all the attendant challenges.
• Disaster and development are inextricably linked. Building healthy urban communities, large and small, and understanding how to sustain them is a global priority.
• Communities exist where human beings relate to each other and to their environment, but are also constituted by individuals and are place-based. Communities are also shaped by the social, economic, and political policies that govern them and the cultural practices that sustain them.

The Partnership for the Transformation of Urban Communities brings together diverse assets from within and across the university and its partners, significantly expands the complexity of the issues with which the partnership can engage, and creates a context from which Tulane can provide leadership both in rebuilding New Orleans and in building a better future for people everywhere.

PTUC wishes to thank the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for its generous gift to support planning and start-up.