Experts to meet in Detroit to discuss urban revitalization

[begingri]

JOHN GALLAGHER

DETROIT FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER


Several dozen of America’s leading thinkers on urban revitalization will gather in Detroit later this week for a four-day brainstorming session to help distressed cities reinvent themselves.

The meeting is sponsored by the American Assembly, an organization founded by President Dwight Eisenhower and based at Columbia University in New York that tackles some of the nation’s toughest problems.

The goal is to come up with new approaches that various cities can adapt to their own circumstances as they work toward revitalization, said David Mortimer, president of the American assembly.

“The assembly expects to develop a more informed and successful response to the challenge of population loss and contraction, drawing on a wide range of expertise and experience,” he said. “This event will be one of the first major gatherings in the United States dedicated to these problems and to policy responses.”

It’s no accident the assembly is holding this conference in Detroit, he added.

“Detroit may be the best illustration of these problems in the United States — and also the leader in developing coordinated policy responses,” he said.

Among the visitors will be several Europeans who have worked to help reinvent their own cities. They include Valentino Castellani, former mayor of Turin, Italy, who helped lead a resurgence in Turin after the city’s automotive industry collapsed 20 years ago.


Continued at: http://www.freep.com/article/2011041...revitalization

[kathy2trips]

"We're academics...and we're here to help." Please, Please let some input come from those with practical experience, not just "book learnin'.

[Fnemecek]

“Detroit may be the best illustration of these problems in the United States — and also the leader in developing coordinated policy responses,” he said.

Detroit is the leader in developing coordinated policy responses???

Since when?

[NorthEndere]

Detroit is the leader in developing coordinated policy responses???

Since when?

Surely, they must mean as the perfect example of what not to emulate, right? lol

[wanderinglady]

"We're academics...and we're here to help." Please, Please let some input come from those with practical experience, not just "book learnin'.

Yeah, what Kathy said! And how about having some concrete results? Or will this result in yet another study that will be lost in some desk drawer or some obscure website?

[Hermod]

"We're academics...and we're here to help." Please, Please let some input come from those with practical experience, not just "book learnin'.

Better yet, those with money.

[mwilbert]

I think academics have a lot of good ideas about how to improve cities. However, ideas obviously are not enough. And I have to agree with Fnemecek that the "coordinated policy responses" is not based on any actual actions I have seen. I'd be pretty curious to know what they might have been referring to.

[coracle]

An "Expert" is someone that only knows what you already know but he's/she's from out of town.

[Hermod]

An "Expert" is someone that only knows what you already know but he's/she's from out of town.

An "ex" is a has-been and a "spurt" is a drip under pressure.