See You in DC: The 2011 NAPC Conference - Communities in Transformation

I admit it: I am excited to once again travel to D.C. for the 2011 NAPC Conference: Communities in Transition.

However, I would say that I prepare to travel with mixed emotions, for our community -- our Pinellas County community, our Florida community, our national and global community -- has been in great transition, often tumultuously so.

Revolutions have rocked North Africa and the Middle East, aided by new technologies like Facebook and Twitter. The face of our world is changing.

Here at home, we are struggling through what many call a "jobless recovery" -- and I have no doubt that Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute and Demetra Smith Nightingale of The Urban Institute will discuss this during the Saturday sessions.

In Florida, we are once again facing a multi-billion dollar state-wide budget deficit.

Here in Pinellas County, the impact of transition was more personal with the loss of Browning Spence.

Frankly, this has been a tough year for JWB -- for Floridians generally, and even for Americans, even for people around the globe. We took the loss of Browning very hard, and his passing leaves a vacuum at JWB, and I suspect at the NAPC as well.

If you're planning on attending this year, I hope you'll have a good thought for Browning, who would have loved to be there with us.

As we did last year, this year we'll be videotaping most parts of the event, and doing some web-only exclusives, like interviewing the presenters after the fact.

Please don't forget to follow along for daily updates on this blog, on our YouTube page (http://www.youtube.com/NAPCForward), and on our Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/n_a_p_c).

I'll have an updated post some time soon to remind you of those important links so you can follow along. Look forward to updating you from the 2011 Conference in Alexandria, VA.