The Knight Cities Challenge Is Looking for a Few Good Ideas

From now through November 14, the Knight Foundation is accepting ideas for the Knight Cities Challenge, a competition that will award grants from a purse of $5 million to proposals for improving life in cities. It's a competition along the lines of the Knight News Challenge or the Knight Arts Challenge, with the goal of spurring civic innovation at the block, neighborhood, or city level—in one or several of 26 different Knight communities.

"Proposal" is almost too strong a word for the first stage of the Knight Cities Challenge: Ideas don't need to come with a budget, or even necessarily a city in mind. In fact, the Knight Foundation is soliciting only short answers to two questions—as well as a summary of the idea that takes the form of a 140-character tweet.