Detroit's Latest Italian Import

On her visit to Turin, Italy, this week, city planner Kathryn Lynch Underwood met with local officials to learn more about the underpinnings of the "Torido model" before she transplants it to Detriot later this year.

Andrea Rossi for La Stampa newspaper reports, "[W]ith her came a group of about ten managers, experts and market operators. The first thing they did was taking a plunge in the heart of the Porta Palazzo market. Then they gathered in an office, to be briefed in detail on Torino's 45 local markets by the city's administrators in charge of local commerce and public spaces."

"Our challenge is to bring about density in a depopulated city center. Detroit is a dispersive city. Markets can help in creating new densities, to repopulate the heart of the city, and to rebuild the sense of community," Underwood explains in the article.