Posted May 24, 2011
As Director of Community Progress’ New Orleans Vacant Properties Initiative, I am particularly thrilled to announce the location of our fourth national Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference in 2012. It’s New Orleans! The theme for next year’s conference is “Remaking America for the 21st Century.” New Orleans, of course, is a perfect setting in which to…
Posted May 10, 2011
As evidenced in the recent census, the Syracuse, New York region is turning a corner on investment, development and growth. While these trends suggest a bright future, decades of population loss and economic turmoil have left a resurgent Syracuse area with many legacy issues to wrestle with, most notably, vacant property. Nearly 2,000 unoccupied and…
Posted April 21, 2011
One of the most challenging and important problems for older cities, particularly those that have lost much of their population, is how to not only stabilize still-vital neighborhoods, but make them communities of choice – places where people who live there already want to stay, and where people from elsewhere want to move into. How…
Posted April 14, 2011
I have the distinct honor of joining former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, former Columbus, OH Mayor Greg Lashutka, Dan Kildee, Frank Alexander, and about 80 other experts from the United States and Europe this weekend to help set an agenda for cities in this country that are experiencing severe population loss. These are cities where…
Posted April 12, 2011
Recently released census data confirmed what many of us long have felt to be true: that the last decade has been one of steep population decline in cities like Detroit, Flint and across the industrial Midwest. The numbers are stark: Detroit’s population fell to 713,777, a loss of 237,493 people, a 25 percent decline. Flint…
