by Dan Goodman

National City Network (NCN) was officially introduced at last year?s Congress of Cities and Exhibition in Charlotte and will be on hand again this year in Reno, with television coverage of major events and activities.

NCN has grown from little more than an idea at the beginning of 2005 to a pair of information-packed websites serving more than 5,000 visitors each month. An information portal (www.nationalcitynetwork.org) allows users to browse current news about cities, attend web seminars and search nearly 7,000 carefully selected reports and case studies from dozens of partners. NCN-TV (www.ncntv.org) hosts streaming video of live events, past conferences, and feature programming.

NCN-TV anchor Steve Jarriel returns to Reno, where earlier this year he joined a cross-country convoy commemorating the 50th anniversary of the interstate highway system. While in Reno with the convoy, NCN-TV interviewed officials associated with Reno?s ReTRAC project, an innovative traffic management solution that will be the subject of one of the mobile workshops at Congress of Cities.

?Reno is facing the same challenges as other cities throughout the country,? Jarriel said. ?Even as early as June, city officials were making plans to showcase how they?ve dealt with them. It?ll be a great visit in a magnificent part of the country.?

Normally NCN picks a monthly theme of interest to cities. With December?s focus on the conference, NCN will be taking a broad look back at some of its most compelling programming in 2006. As part of this retrospective, NCN will also be paying special attention to National League of Cities? ?City Showcase? participants in Reno. Interviews with City Showcase exhibitors will begin appearing on NCN-TV during the conference itself.

NCN will have two booths at Congress of Cities. One booth, in the NLC Services area of the Exhibit Hall, will offer demonstrations of the range of NCN benefits. The other, outside the Exhibit Hall, will be a mini-TV studio, where passersby will be able to see new video from the conference just hours after it is recorded. The NCN-TV crew will also be recording interviews at the mini-studio. Conference delegates will be welcome to record their impressions of the event, and even their own personal introductions to NCN.

Both NCN websites are free and available to the public. Free user registration is encouraged, and allows visitors to view previous months? web seminars and receive periodic notices about upcoming events on NCN.

National City Network is a service of National League of Cities.