Robert Palmer is an international advisor working in 20 countries on cultural planning and city change. He has helped numerous European cities successfully win the designation of "European Capital of Culture," including the unlikely cities of Glasgow and Dublin. He now makes his home in Brussels.

Robert D. Atkinson is vice president of the Progressive Policy Institute and director of PPI's Technology and New Economy Project, where he was the lead author of The New Economy Index and The State New Economy Index. Before joining PPI, he was executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Policy Council, a nonpartisan organization made up of 20 representatives from the private sector, organized labor, higher education, and government, including the governor. Dr. Atkinson was also a project director at the former Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. While at OTA, he directed The Technological Reshaping of Metropolitan America, a report examining the impact of the information technology revolution on America's urban areas. Dr. Atkinson has a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.