He is also an Affiliated Faculty member in the ASU Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes (CSPO) as well as a fellow at The New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. He is co-director of was instrumental in the establishment of “Future Tense,” a strategic partnership among between The New America Foundation, ASU and Slate magazine to explore emerging technologies and their transformative effects on society and public policy. He has served as a fellow at Cambridge University, the University of California at Berkeley and George Mason University, is an affiliate of The Institute for Science, Innovation and Society at Oxford, and is a Science Journalism Laureate at Purdue. He is a member of Global Business Network, the pioneering scenario-planning organization. Previously, he was a reporter and editor at The Washington Post in charge of "cultural revolution" journalism.

His Edge City work is often compared to that of Jane Jacobs or Ronald J. Oakerson for its focus on urban quality of life and autonomy of urban regions from suburbs and surrounding agricultural areas.

His books and articles include: