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