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Shrinking Cities: Redefining & Reengineering Distressed Cities & Suburbs

Posted Oct 22 2009

This announcement was posted by:
DePaul University

This half-day symposium will explore cutting-edge techniques to redesign and reengineer urban and suburban areas that are destined to experience population decline or a diminished economic role. Attendees will participate in small-group discussions with national experts, including Dan Kildee of the City of Flint, Michigan, and Hunter Morrison, former planning director for the City of Cleveland, Ohio.

Hosted by DePaul University's Real Estate Center & Chaddick Institute:

The specter of economic divestment and population decline looms over many cities and suburbs in the American Heartland. Dozens of once-thriving industrial hubs, including Cleveland, Detroit, and Toledo, are bracing for another round of population losses, despite having already seen their population fall by nearly 50 percent since 1950. Even suburban boomtowns of the 1970s and 1980s with aging residential neighborhoods and older retail areas are struggling to deal with issues related to economic decline.

In response to these problems, “shrinking cities” are turning to bold and innovative strategies. Some are closing roads and redesigning street grids while consolidating schools. Others are transforming abandoned residential areas into public open space or turning crumbling manufacturing districts into forest preseves. Still others are “land banking” to make possible ambitious redevelopment schemes.

SPACE IS LIMITED TO 90 PARTICIPANTS.

Date/Place: Thursday, November 19, 8 a.m. - noon. DePaul, 1 E. Jackson, Chicago. Optional roundtable luncheon follows at 12:30.
Breakout Session Topics: land banking, street reconfiguration, redeveloping obsolete retail strips, consolidation of public services, creative financial strategies.
Costs: Conference: $85, includes continental breakfast
Roundtable luncheon: $50

REGISTER HERE: http://apps.comtech.depaul.edu/survey/fillsurvey.php?sid=48

For more information, please email Kathleen O'Hare: kohare@depaul.edu.

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The areas where we have severe blight and indications of more blight to come are basically the same as they ever were. How in the world are we ever going to move our community development selves into an alternative future that thinks differently about the challenges we face in our cities and low-income suburban and rural communities?
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