architect tour but its cutting- edge architecture really put columbus on the map. we'll explore this remarkable town all morning but our cover story will take us back to the big city. as seth doane explains we've got plenty of company. >> reporter: cities are back. because so many people are back in them. after years of folks moving to the suburbs, more and more of us are finding that returning to the city is the only way to go. >> they let you live, really live, you know, think, feel, smell, taste. >> reporter: cities let you do all of this? >> yeah. >> reporter: why is city life so appealing? later on sunday morning. >> osgood: good design doesn't always mean soaring sky scrapers or elegant homes. it also has a role to play in far more humble structures and pursuits as serena altschul will be showing us. >> reporter: you may have been "in" the dog house once upon a time. but chances are it wasn't like this one. or this one. dogs might just be an architect's best friend. >> they can't really speak back. they can't give you other directions which is good. >> reporter: for pets of any persuasion, home is where the heart is. >> it is a chicken coop but at the same time it's also a luxury residence of poll tree. >> reporter: later on sunday morning. >> osgood: some names are synonymous with taste and style. a case in point from our anthony mason. >> reporter: she showed a generation of women how to dress. now diane von furstenberg wants them to eat and sleep with her too. >> everything that happens in your life happens in your bed. >> reporter: will you join us on the show this morning. >> i will be there, i hope everybody will be there. >> reporter: designer diane von furstenberg later this sunday morning. >> hi. >> osgood: when we speak of design we don't just mean office buildings or homes. we mean the objects we keep inside our homes as well. that includes the eye-catching items our david turecamo has been studying. >> reporter: well, if we're talking about design we can't leave out the french. french lingerie, that is. >> they always make things that can make like a game between the woman and the man. >> reporter: you mean? >> in intimacy. >> reporter: somehow i had always thought that. the french fashion most of us will never get to see. well, that is until later on sunday morning. >> osgood: professional designers aren't the only ones trying to improve the devices we use in our everyday lives. ordinary people are doing it as well. bill geist can attest to that. ♪ riding along in my automobile ♪ > the village's retirement community was designed for a golf cart lifestyle. with 90 miles of paths carrying drivers of 50,000 golf carts almost anywhere they would want to go. and they go in style. every conceiveable style. and some inconceiveable. extreme golf carts later on sunday morning. >> osgood: mitchell miller demonstrates a whole new way of getting a grip. rita braver visits the soaring sydney australia opera house. martha teichner admires the works of a world-famous jeweler and much more besides. first let's go to russ mitchell in the news room for the sunday morning headlines. >> reporter: good morning. it is may 22, 2011. in the middle of the night message indiana governor mitch daniels has announced that he will not seek the republican presidential nomination. daniels told friends and supporters he has decided not to sacrifice his family's privacy. but in atlanta yesterday, another republican, businessman herman kane, said he would seek his party's nomination. kane is a favorite of the tea party and is in favor of replacing income taxes with a national sales tax. he has never held elective office. tonight president obama departs for a week-long overseas trip. tomorrow he visits ireland where his great great great grandfather lived before coming to the united states in 1850. the popeed out to the heavens yesterday. benedict xvi bestowd blessings upon the 12 astronauts now at the international space shuttle. while two members of the crew were on a space walk to do maintenance work. iceland has threatened to disrupts european air travel. the country's main airport closed this morning. the ash and smoke have yet to spread beyond iceland's air space. at the preakness in baltimore yesterday it looked like shackle foot would never make it to the starting gate but he showed real giddy up holding off kentucky derby winner animal kingdom in the stretch. as you probably heard there's a small but passionate group of folks who believe that the world was supposed to come to an end yesterday. we're happy to report that didn't happen. here we are. so here's the day's weather. it will be a wet sunday across the northern states. look for high heat and thunderstorms in the south. that pattern should hold during the days ahead. unless you live in the sunny southwest, you'll probably want to carry an umbrella. >> osgood: ahead, cities on the rebound. and later, a >> osgood: how is is this for a claim to fame? the church behind me is the famous example of modern architecture. across the street is the library. that's designed by ian tae. between them this sculpture by world class artist henry moore. all of this in an indiana town of 44,000 people. winston churchill once said we shape our buildings. thereafter, they shape us. and no person shaped the built landscape of columbus, indiana quite like jay erwin miller. the progressive minded businessman and champion of civil rights causes once named by esquire magazine as the man who ought to be president. miller knew his hometown needed something special to stand out so he plowed a portion of the profits from his family's cummings engine company into enlisting great architects to design many of the city's public buildings: an elementary school. the designer went on to design washington d.c.'s monumental subway system. city hall by builders of the underconstruction freedom tower now known as one world trade center. and this library by a man best known for his louvre pyramid in paris. businesses and houses of worship hopped on the modernist bandwagon as well. one of columbus most distinctive landmarks is north christian church. you may not know the designer but you might recognize his handiwork in the st. louis gateway arch. even his space age tune ill chair which lookeded quite at home on the starship enterprise. the shares look very much at home in the house he designed for the miller family in 1953. will miller grew up here and says his father's philosophy is visible all across columbus. >> he felt that excellence ought to be pursued in everything you do. so if you were going to make a diesel engine, it should be the best possible diesel engine. if you're going to be part of a community, you should work to make it to be the best community it could. if you build your own house, it should be the best house you could possibly try to design. >> osgood: that spirit endures to this day, seven years after mr. miller's death. a standout small town by design. ordinarily you would have to head to a great big city to live among designs like this. as death don now shows us, these days a lot of people are doing just that. >> reporter: consider this: today worldwide more than half of us live in cities. by 2050, the united nations projects nearly three quarters of us will. more and more these bustling metropolises are becoming home. when did you start thinking about moving to the city? >> probably about a month after i moved into the unsuburbs. >> reporter: connie remembers her years in the 'burbs as dull. >> my sister said you're on wisteria lane. i said what's that? it was a great house. it was very peaceful. very homogeneous. it was very boring. >> reporter: so last year at age 61, this nurse-turneded health care entrepreneur who found a new lease on life after beating stage 4 cancer settled in this spectacular home in san francisco. >> when i saw this view, i said, now this is the city. and i also... and this is the neighborhood. i'm living life. this is life. this is the luxury of middle age. >> reporter: the luxury of middle age. >> to move to the city and to enjoy the richness and the vastness of the things that are here. i hang around 24th street. i pick up flowers, pick up some fruit. >> reporter: she says walking everywhere keeps her fit. in fact, studies show many urbanites are actually healthier and may even live longer. and their environmentally friendlier too because they drive less, live in smaller spaces and use less energy. to offset her 200 square foot space, she takes it a step further. this is all run by solar power. >> yes, yes. >> reporter: the natural light comes through and you let it right through the floor here. a lucite stairwell in her three-story modern home lets natural light penetrate. saving so much electricity that the utility company actually writes her a check every month. while she moved to this vibrant city for culture... if you just look around new york... author and harvard economist edward glacier says many folks moving to cities are just following the money. city workers earn 30% more than those in suburbs. just look at midtown manhattan. >> the economic output, the payroll of this area is higher than oregon or nevada, right? this tiny sliver of land is an unbelieveably productive part of america. that productivity is ultimately at the heart of city's appeal. it's ultimately what drawing so many people to cities. >> reporter: today around 250 million americans choose to live in or around urban areas. that means more than three quarters of our population shares just about 3% of our land area. since 1990, the number of people living in cities has gone up by 7%. a far cry from all those years of folks fleeing to the suburbs. >> if you ever lived in the city, you'd know what attracts people to long island. >> the movement in the other direction back towards the destinies that were our historic starting points. >> reporter: now to some say the word "city," and you're talking the concrete jungle of man at and. or maybe you think of the city by the bay: san francisco. but you probably would not think about this place. olive branch, mississippi. it's the fastest-growing city in the united states. >> in the late 1800s we were known as cow pen. >> reporter: sam reicher is the mayor here. changing the name from the town from cow pen to olive branch might have helped with the growth. >> i think it's probably helped tremendously, yeah. snul olive branch, just outside memphis had certainly blossomed. 3500 people in 1990 to a small city of nearly 34,000 today. this 838% population boom bloomberg business week recently gave it that ranking, america's fastest growing city. >> it's almost like a field of dreams. you build it and they'll come. that's almost reality here. >> reporter: it's reality all across the south. over the last ten years most of the fastest-growing major cities were southern cities. that's not a coincidence according to edward glacier. >> the variable that best predicts metropolitan growth over the century is january temperature. that's a very good predictor of which american cities are growing more or less quickly. america in 1900 was built around a great transportation network of the great lakes and the railroads. as it became cheaper to move goods over space people got to move to the places that they wanted to move to. >> reporter: randy and shannon taylor moved from a smaller town in mississippi to olive branch back in 2002. they wanted better schools and more amenities. along with an affordable cost of living. >> just the range of things that have popped up in olive branch. restaurants and theater and things like that. >> reporter: has it changed a lot in the last two years? >> absolutely. there used to be just a two-lane road that ran through olive branch. now it's one of the busiest streets in the county. >> reporter: and that's what gets to life-long resident janice turner. >> occasionally i will ask myself where are these people coming from? and occasionally i'll ask, didn't they learn to drive. >> reporter: she says she can measure all this growth by the addition of traffic lights and chain stores. >> it looks like an ocean of houses when i get to a high point in olive branch and look over the roof tops. it's sort of startling to see. >> reporter: when we think of booming population growth you might not think of olive branch, mississippi, but should we? >> sure, we should. we should be thinking about so much that's exciting that's happening in the middle of america. it's happening in those areas that are able to combine the metropolitan productivity with cost of living. >> reporter: cities of all sizes, giving folks like connie a chance to redefine where they live their american dream. >> i think it is just a way of revitalizing and reener nicing reenergizing and in a way counting the blessings. >> reporter: and a city can make you do that? >> all the way. a... living in the city helps feed your spirit, feed your soul. >> osgood: coming up before and after. woman: till all the books are read... man: and all the pens are put down... woman: and everything there is to learn is learned. man: till the heroes retire and the monsters return to their dens... woman: and all the plots are wrapped up. man: till that day... boy: by hook or by crook... girl: by book or by nook... woman: i will read. >> osgood: as you might expect, the folks behind columbus's ambitious design program, the miller family, had ambitious plans for their personal residence as well. this modernist home from the 1950s designed by the finnish- born architect was also home to a number of firsts including this first aptly called conversation pit. the millers never even considered selling their home. they donated this national historic landmark to the indianapolis museum of art. but for people who are home sellers staging may be the sales technique of choice. cynthia bowers tells us more. >> reporter: in this brutal real estate market, the deck seems stacked against sellers. consider that the average home for sale in this country has been on the market for more than three months. the days of just being able to put out a for-sale sign and people having bidding wars are gone. >> long gone. i'm not sure we'll ever see them again. >> reporter: but it turns out there's a secret weapon for sellers. it's called staging. >> you have two choices if you want to work with me. stage it or not. and the answer is not, i'm not working with you. >> reporter: chicago broker ian swartz says he cannot waste time on ugly houses. >> i do not want to be apologizing for the house when i walk in. i need to be confident. i need to say, "this is a beautiful house." >> reporter: staging is basically a facelift instead of major home surgery. this row house in chicago's pricey lincoln park languished on the market for two years before swartz listed it and enlisted help. the first impression begins at first sight like love. >> absolutely. when somebody walks in the front door what we want is is them to immediately feel comfort, inviting and wanting to see more of this house. i mean take me further. >> reporter: mona is one of chicago's hottest house stagers. her job is to turn lived-in into longed-for. >> the one thing that people have to understand when they sell a house is you have to let go of the house. it can't be yours anymore. you have to understand it's now a commodity. we need to appeal to the broadest audience possible. >> reporter: she showed us her handiwork in the row house. she says the most important changes are often the easiest. >> painting a house, wasn'ting a room will give you the most dramatic change for the money. >> reporter: and rule number one: bright is bad. >> your personal touches in your house, your personal colors aren't necessarily someone else's. they have got to be able to feel themselves living in the home. >> reporter: the deal like the devil she says is often in the details. so this is stuff you supplied all this furniture. >> everything in this house that's not attached we brought in. everything. every piece of furniture, every accessory. every piece of art is all about accentuating the details in the house. >> reporter: that means rethinking the whole place from top.... >> previously when you came up the stairs, the first thing you saw in this room was a big ceiling fan. >> reporter:... to bottom. >> we fresh ened this up. that's really all it took to make the buyer know we could move in here tomorrow as opposed to it's going to take us six months to get that basement done. >> reporter: according to a staging website one in four homes on the market today is staged. typically those homes sell more quickly usually in about one month instead of three. a professional staging will usually cost around 3% of the asking price. for the row house that was about $30,000. >> take a look. >> reporter: but what if like me you can't or won't spend that kind of money if you decide to sell your house? >> right off the bat, you've got to paint. >> we have to paint? >> we have to paint. i would definitely give consideration to changing the carpet. we probably have a little... too many plants. >> reporter: hard to hear perhaps but not nearly as hard as having your house unsold. >> osgood: next, smile. [ male announcer ] look outside. it's grow time. so let's plant some perennials that'll turn up every year. trees and shrubs to give us depth. and fill it out with flowers placed in just the perfect place. let's spend less, but plant more. what do you say we plant a weekend, water it, and watch a summer spring up? more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. right now, roundup weed & grass killer or ortho weed-b-gon max is just $8.88. right now, roundup weed & grass killer ♪ i was diagnosed with copd. i could not take a deep breath i noticed i was having trouble. climbing the stairs, working in the garden, painting. my doctor suggested spiriva right then. announcer: spiriva is the only once-daily inhaled maintenance treatment for copd, which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. i love what it does. it opens up the airways. announcer: spiriva does not replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms. stop taking spiriva and call your doctor right away if your breathing suddenly worsens, your throat or tongue swells, you get hives, have vision changes or eye pain, or have problems passing urine. tell your doctor if you have glaucoma, problems passing urine, or an enlarged prostate, as these may worsen with spiriva. also, discuss the medicines you take, even eye drops. side effects include dry mouth, constipation, and trouble passing urine. it makes me breathe easier. i can't do everything i used to do. but there's a lot i can do that i was struggling with. announcer: ask your doctor if once-daily spiriva is right for you. >> osgood: good design isn't just pleasing to the eye. as richard roth tells us there's another part of the human face that can benefit as well. >> hey, guys. what's up? >> reporter: sometimes you only hear the truth from friends. >> do you notice anything. >> your teeth. yes, i saw them from outside. ♪ when you're smiling, when you're smiling ♪ >> reporter: when subtlety is a casualty in the quest for self improvement, when a satisfied smile looks more like a cherbshire grin the blame these days goes to bad design. the artistry in modern dentistry is is in a smile that's hardly noticed. ♪ when you're smiling, the whole world smiles with you ♪ >> we made the central teeth a little bit longer than the lateral. >> reporter: miami dentist todd barski says when a patient tells him his work has been ignored he's pleased. >> i love it. but my friends and family haven't said anything. nobody noticed. they said you did something. we don't know what you did. i said that's the greatest compliment you can give me. >> reporter: as you wou