Fellows Biographies

Neal R. Peirce

(1977) – Neal Peirce is a lead writer, among American journalists, on the dynamics of state and local government, with a special focus in recent years on metropolitan regions — their political and economic dynamics, their emerging national and global roles.

Earlier in his career Peirce was the political editor of Congressional Quarterly and then one of the founders of National Journal. He wrote a 10-book series on America’s states and regions culminating in The Book of America: Inside 50 States Today (W.W. Norton, 1983) – and continues today — the United States’ first national column focused on state and local government themes, syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group. With Curtis Johnson, he has co-authored the Citistates Reports on compelling issues of metropolitan futures for leading newspapers in 25 regions across the nation, among them the Seattle Times, Dallas Morning News, Philadelphia Inquirer and St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Peirce was lead author of the 1993 book, Citistates. Since 1995 he has been chairman of the Citistates Group, a network of journalists, speakers and consultants who believe that successful metropolitan regions are today’s key to economic competitiveness and sustainable communities.

Peirce lives in Washington, D.C. with a summer and autumn cottage in New Hampshire.