Here at the Switchblog we encourage candor about the challenge of changing policy and behavior, especially when the challenges are global in scope or desperately urgent. Presentations this morning on the new Rockefeller Foundation report, Century of the City: No Time to Lose, and on the options for ending the violence in Eastern Congo offered plenty of candor. And plenty of potential to overwhelm us with discouraging statistics and analysis. The presenters chose a different path.

Neal Peirce, co-author of the surprisingly lively and accessible RF publication, talked candidly about the downside of candor at a book launch event sponsored by the International Housing Coalition. A litany of grim statistics about the extraordinary health,environmental and housing challenges posed by the growth of mega-cities in the global South could grab the attention of policymakers and lay readers. But as Neal and colleagues realized, that approach risked paralyzing decisionmakers just when action is needed most: "No time to lose!"

And so the book (and his presentation) leads with the equally extraordinary potential that cities offer as engines of economic growth and cultural vitality. As important, Neal sought to shrink the emotional distance between his (relatively wealthy and powerful) audience from the slum dwellers at the heart of the most desperate urban challenges. "These are organized, vibrant beehives of small entrepreneurs. These are people doing their best to house and educate and raise their kids. They are more like us than not."

Mauro de Lorenzo of the American Enterprise Institute, Colin Thomas-Jensen of ENOUGH, and independent consultant Tony Gambino had a topic whose grim realities could reduce the most Panglossian optimist to a quivering mass of despondency. Their discussion of current prospects for ending the longstanding crisis in the Eastern Congo was brutally honest and tough to hear. But perhaps belatedly sensing the same home truth about effective advocacy messaging that moved Neal Peirce to accentuate the positive, Mauro sent us off with a brief and heartening closing homily: "Discussions of the Eastern Congo often leave people depressed. But there are things we can do. Creativity is possible."