Tag Archives: Shrinking Cities

Final Spring 2013 MI+SPIA Lecture this Thursday, April 11, 2013

Posted on by

090201_1492_hollander020.CR2Please join us for our final Spring MI+SPIA Lecture Series, hosted by the Urban Affairs and Planning Program.

“Urban Absorption in a Shrinking City: A close examination of depopulation, land use change, and city planning”, A Lecture by Justin Hollander, Thursday, April 11, 2013

In the face of substantial economic decline over the last eight decades, New Bedford (Massachusetts) has changed in many ways.  The most astounding way is how the physical form of the city has shifted in the wake of population loss: factories have been converted to apartment buildings, vacant lots turned into gardens. How has the physical DNA of the city been recoded, who led this process, what worked and what did not?  Through detailed analyses of the history, politics, environment, and planning strategies of the city, Dr. Hollander is writing a book to answer these very questions.  In this presentation, he offers early findings from his research.

Justin Hollander, PhD, AICP, is an Assistant Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University and a Research Scientist at the George Perkins Marsh Institute at Clark University.  He is the author of Sunburnt Cities: The Great Recession, Depopulation and Urban Planning in the American Sunbelt (Routledge, 2011) and two other books examining the challenges of planning for post-industrial, shrinking cities.

Host:  Professor Joe Schilling, Director, MI+SPIA, Virginia Tech

Facilitator:  Professor Maggie Cowell, Urban Affairs and Planning, Virginia Tech

Respondents:  Professors Sherry Lee Linkon and John Russo

Thursday, April 11th

6:30 to 7:30 pm (presentation); 7:30-8:30 (discussion)

Virginia Tech Research Center

900 N. Glebe Road

Ballston Room

Arlington, VA

RSVP by 4/11/13

6:00 – 6:30 PM Q&A Session for potential Urban Affairs and Planning (UAP) graduate students

Light refreshments will be served

See flyer to more information.

Hope to see you there!

17 Fellows Selected for Inaugural Strong Cities Strong Communities (SC2) Fellowship

Posted on by

The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), Cleveland State University (CSU), and the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech have launched the Strong Cities Strong Communities (SC2) Fellowship Program with the selection and placement of 17 fellows working to build local capacity in seven SC2 pilot communities: Chester, PA; Cleveland, OH; Detroit, MI; Fresno, CA; Memphis, TN; New Orleans, LA; and Youngstown, OH.

The fellows have varied backgrounds, ranging from planning and economic development to workforce development and program management. Over the next two years, they will work on a variety of high priority projects in each of the communities, including small business development, grant writing, vacant property management, and the creation of data-driven economic strategies.  A full list of fellows and brief bios can be found here.

The full press release is available online here.

New Book: The City After Abandonment

Posted on by

The City After Abandonment (Margaret Dewar and June Manning Thomas, Editors, University of Pennsylvania Press) is a collection of essays from top urban planning experts focusing on policy and planning issues related to three questions: what are cities becoming after abandonment?  How did they get here? What should abandoned areas of cities become? By suggesting an urban design scheme for shrinking cities, the books lays out a strategy for policymakers and planners to approach the future through processes and ideas that differ from those in growing cities.

The book features a chapter by Metropolitan Institute Interim Director, Joe Schilling, and  former MI research assistant, Raksha Vasudevan, titled The Promise of Sustainability Planning in the Regeneration of Shrinking Cities. Schilling and Vasudevan assessed formulas for addressing vacancy and abandoned urban lots by examining the sustainability plans of Cleveland, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. They suggest that well-designed sustainability plans would establish strong policy connections between the unique physical, social, environmental and economic challenges that confront many distressed communities by developing new urban regeneration elements. A comprehensive, collaborative, and coordinated sustainability planning framework could establish stronger policy and programmatic connections between vacant property reclamation, green jobs, and sustainable reuse, rebuilding city and civic capacity. Such framework would not only expedite and enhance legacy cities regeneration efforts, but position these communities for a more sustainable, low carbon future.

Cities in Transition: A Guide for Practicing Planners

Posted on by

Earlier this month Metropolitan Institute Associate Director Joseph Schilling and Alan Mallach of the Brookings Institution were in Los Angeles at the American Planning Association’s annual conference promoting the new PAS report on Cities in Transition. The report offers practicing planners a comprehensive menu of place-based strategies for addressing different dimensions of urban distress—from the reclamation of vacant properties to rebuilding local government and civic capacity. Schilling and Mallach view cities in transition through a typology that includes older industrial, shrinking cities, fast growing boom-n-bust cities, declining first tier suburbs and small, but growing gateway cities. All of these cities, large and small, east and west, share similar challenges of trying to confront the convergence of many socioeconomic transitions.

Distressed cities typically have chronic or acute urban decline, decreasing revenue and resources, loss of population, and high rates of poverty and crime, etc. These challenges are often concentrated in poor neighborhoods, but are now spreading to more stable neighborhoods thanks in part to our overall economic downturn. Today cities of all stripes face changes in maintaining previous or consistent growth rates as they goes through their own sets of transitions. Many cities exacerbate the problems by failing to strategically target existing resources.

In light of these complexities, the report sets forth a strategic policy planning framework that could help communities create new visions and coordinate all of these moving pieces into a more efficient suite of policy and planning interventions. Schilling explains, “Planners in distressed cities should reflect on the past, assess the present, and realign resources. It’s important for planners to break old habits and think critically about the city’s slower growth trajectory.” The report will help planners and community leaders recalibrate classic planning strategies and tools, such as comprehensive plans and zoning codes to be consistent and effective within the new reality. The report contains excerpts of “Text Box Interviews” that examine the realities of planning in distressed cities through the eyes of planners and community leaders who are experimenting with new approaches. The complete interview as well as additional interviews can be found at the Institute’s Vacant Properties Research Network site.

The PAS report on Cities in Transition was a joint project with the American Planning Association with support from The Ford Foundation’s Metropolitan program and is part of the Metropolitan Institute’s larger Vacant Property Research Initiative. Copies may be purchased at at APA Bookstore.

 

 

 

Strong Cities, Strong Communities Fellowship Program Twitter Town Hall TOMORROW

Posted on by

On February 28 at 3:00 p.m. EST, the US Housing and Urban Development (HUD )Secretary Donovan and Assistant Secretary Poethig will host a Twitter town hall to launch the Strong Cities, Strong Communities Fellowship Program. The event will be streamed live on HUD’s website.

The Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech is pleased to be partnering with the German Marshall Fund (GMF) and Cleveland State University (CSU) for HUD’s SC2 Fellowship Program. Over the next few months, the GMF will manage the national selection process in search of a highly-skilled group of mid-career professionals who will work in  the seven pilot cities for two years.  In the coming months, MI and its partners will build the support network for the fellows and the host local governments through a series of workshops, webinars, and mentoring sessions. Underwriting for the fellowships is provided by a generous gift from the Rockefeller Foundation.

During the Twitter town hall, Secretary Donovan will provide more details about how you can apply for the SC2 Fellowship Program and be a part of this new generation of innovative leaders committed to public service. We will tweet about eligibility, timing, selection criteria, and other details you will want to know to apply. The event will be streamed live on HUD’s website. Twitter users will be able to ask questions in advance and during the Town Hall using the hashtag #AskSOHUD.

SC2 is about effective government and fostering the type of change that can positively impact communities. By creating long-lasting partnerships with local governments, philanthropies, academic institutions, business, and non-profits, we can help revitalize and strengthen America’s cities.

Letter From the Director – Wrap-Up of the First Semester

Posted on by

My first semester as Director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech (MI) is drawing to a close. Similar to my 60 day update, I would like to share with you selected achievements and strategic activities of the institute. The institute is now home to a number of blossoming research efforts, including a policy informatics network, expanding work on citizen engagement, critical looks at development patterns in distressed cities, and the local and global patterns of community resiliency.

Roundup on Grants and Proposals
We continue to diversify our funded research portfolio. Joe Schilling led the Metropolitan Institute’s effort to partner with the German Marshall Fund and Cleveland State to manage, mentor, and evaluate a new executive fellowship program as part of the Obama Administration’s Strong Cities, Strong Communities initiative which seeks to build capacity in six economically distressed cities—Cleveland, Detroit, Memphis, New Orleans, Fresno, and Chester, PA. Joe and his colleagues at Cleveland State will assess the impacts from the fellowship while mentoring roughly 30 professionals over a 3-year period. Maggie Cowell and I received a seed grant from the Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment to build a research program on designing resilient networks for local communities. Read more about the project here. We received an IBM Center for the Business of Government grant to study the role of citizen apps and its influence on governance. Read more about the project here. We are hoping to hear positive responses on several grant proposals we currently have under review.

New and Emerging Partnerships
An institute’s strategic alliances are one of its most valuable assets. Building winning partnerships takes time and effort, and the payoffs for both parties are not immediate. We have spent a great deal of time and effort to connect the Metropolitan Institute with our industry, non-profit, and government friends. We have formed a partnership with ACT for Alexandria, a community foundation dedicated to stimulating philanthropic giving on the local level within Alexandria, VA. The ACTion Alexandria project is a new citizen engagement platform with interactive tools to make it easier for residents to take an active role in addressing community problems. The institute will partner with Act for Alexandria and use the ACTion platform to design and test practices that encourage citizen participation using online tools. Read more on this project here. Tentative collaboration agreements are in place or being cultivated with a number of other organizations including the American Red Cross, the US Green Building Council, the International for City/County Managers Association (ICMA), and City and County of San Francisco, among others. Within Virginia Tech, we continue to work closely with our partners in the Northern Capital Region and Blacksburg on a number of collaborative efforts.

Please continue reading for updates on our work in Community Resiliency, Policy Informatics and exciting international outreach and our vision of the future.

Continue reading →

Faculty Fellow Showcase: Margaret Cowell

Posted on by

Professor Margaret Cowell, assistant professor in the Urban Affairs and Planning program in the School of Public and International Affairs and Faculty Fellow to the Metropolitan Institute, shared some of her background and research highlights recently.

 Q: Please tell us a bit about your academic background.

I attended Brown University in Providence, RI, with the intention of becoming a medical doctor, however an undergraduate urban studies course sparked my curiosity and I quickly became obsessed with the subject and took every city-based course I could. I had the opportunity to study abroad in Cork, Ireland, a post-industrial city that felt much like the towns I’d grown up near in upstate New York, and a little like Buffalo or Cleveland. During my time abroad, Cork was seeing some growth with the ‘Celtic Tiger’ and my time there showed me another face of urban development in distressed areas.  I then pursued a Masters degree in planning at the University of Buffalo – another excellent location for studying urban development in shrinking cities. Several years working and conducting research at the Federal Reserve Bank cemented my love for research. Driven by a desire to develop my own research agenda, I went back to school to pursue a PhD at Cornell University, working with Rolf Pendall and Susan Christopherson on transitional economies and regional resilience.

Q: What are your main research projects at the present time?

Currently, I’m working on a book manuscript to help us better understand how larger cities of the Midwest responded to deindustrialization in the 1970s and 1980s. The research is built on interviews I conducted with development officials, civic leaders, public officials, and private sector representatives in Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh to get a sense on the decision-making process and the economic development planning response crafted in each of these places. Continue reading →

MI Partnership with German Marshall Fund Awarded $2.5 million grant from HUD

Posted on by

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced its selection of the German Marshall Fund (GMF) partnership as the recipient of the $2.5 million award to manage the Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2) fellowship program for HUD. The partnership is comprised of the German Marshall Fund, Cleveland State University, and the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech. Associate Director Joseph Schilling will serve as the principle investigator on this three-year project.

The fellowship program is the capacity building element of the White House-led SC2 initiative. SC2 is a pilot program focused on retooling and rebuilding the capacity of cities facing long-term economic challenges often known as cities in transition or legacy cities. Up to 30 fellows will be assigned to the six SC2 cities (Chester, PA; Detroit, MI; New Orleans, LA; Fresno, CA; Memphis, TN; and Cleveland, OH.)

To fund the fellowship program, the Rockefeller Foundation donated $2.5 million to HUD to manage and implement the fellowship program.The GMF partnership was the winning proposal and will be responsible for implementing and administering the fellowship program.

“The Strong Cities Strong Communities Initiative represents a new and innovative way for the federal government to work with local governments, the private sector, and institutions of higher learning to support local economic growth and encourage community development,” said Melody Barnes, White House Domestic Policy Council Director. “The Strong Cities Strong Communities fellowship program will give these cities a class of highly-skilled fellows who are committed to public service, and who will become our next generation of leaders.”

“The Rockefeller Foundation is thrilled to support the Strong Cities Strong Communities Initiative, as part of our commitment to help vulnerable populations build resilience,” said Rockefeller Foundation President Judith Rodin. “The selected fellows will bring new innovation to cities like New Orleans and Detroit in these rapidly changing times, and lend increased energy to communities that are already working to find ways to be resilient during a difficult economic period.”

The fellowship program will be a competitive program that provides funding for early to mid-career professionals to work for 24 months in the six pilot cities to supplement existing local capacity. Virginia Tech’s Metropolitan Institute and CSU’s Center for Community Planning and Development will take the lead on mentoring the fellows on an ongoing basis and evaluating the impacts from the fellows. MI’s Associate Director, Joseph Schilling, and CPD’s Director Kathryn Hexter will serve as the Fellowship’s “Mentor Team” by coaching the teams of fellows and coordinating fellowship activities with sponsor organizations in the six pilot cities.

In addition to building the capacity of local governments, SC2 aims to encourage partnerships among local community organizations, anchor institutions, businesses, foundations and government agencies, to help leverage federal investments.

Link to Cleveland State University Press Release
Link to German Marshall Fund Press Release

International Exchange with the French America Foundation

Posted on by

When the French American Foundation and the Florence Gould Foundation identified the study themes for its two year reciprocal exchange program as neighborhood revitalization, the adaption of cities in transition, and the relationship of creative place making (e.g., sustainability, culture and art), Metropolitan Institute’s Associate Director Joe Schilling offered guidance on the program content and helped them coordinate their fall 2011 study visit to Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Cleveland.

As part of the Metropolitan Institute’s efforts to expand its international outreach, the institute hosted the French American Foundation delegation in Alexandria, Va., including representatives from the French Ministry of Culture and Communications, a principal sponsor of the exchange. Metropolitan Institute Faculty Fellows Maggie Cowell, Ralph Buehler, and Derek Hyra, associate vice president for research in the National Capital Region, Don Leo, and researchers from Virginia Tech’s Advanced Research Institute joined the facilitated discussion as the group explored examples of how sustainability efforts on both sides of the Atlantic can facilitate the regeneration of distressed cities and neighborhoods.

In light of her scholarship on the economic resilience of distressed cities, from December 5th-9th professor and Faculty Fellow Maggie Cowell will part of the US delegation visiting two French regions: the cities of Paris (Ile de France region) and Lille (Nord-Pas-de-Calais region). Both cities are undertaking efforts to revitalize rundown neighborhoods via the PNRQAD program, a national policy initiative which seeks to promote affordable housing and prevent social exclusion. A visit of the French capital will provide a national perspective on urban planning policies and sustainability issues. Both Paris and Lille are invested in “creative place making” efforts. The “Grand Paris” is spearheading many cultural initiatives which connect directly to large-scale urban planning sustainability efforts. Lille was the European Capital for Culture in 2004 and has also incorporated artistic and cultural projects in its urban development plans. The Lille metropolitan area has an interesting economic and industrial history which has left many traces on its urban landscape with its old industrial sites and brownfields. Since 1996, a new policy for urban renewal (“renewed city”/”ville renouvelée”) seeks to rebuild the city on its old foundations by developing its old run-down neighborhoods and its 19th century industrial heritage.

For the Foundation the aim of this two year sustainable cities program and these study visits is to foster dialogue between leading US and French practitioners and experts on cultural and urban policy and provide a platform for transferable model practices. For the Metropolitan Institute these exchanges will help seed ideas and research opportunities into how cities respond to economic stresses and how policies influence their recovery. They will also build on the institute’s work on cities in transition as part of its grant from the Ford Foundation.

Continuing Spotlight on Shrinking Cities

Posted on by

Associate Director Joseph Schilling explores the challenges of the shrinking cities in the November 2011 issue of Planning. In his article ”The Incredible Shrinking City,” author James Krohe, Jr. explores the new world of planning smaller, better, cities.

“Part of the challenge is that folks want to describe and address the problems of declining cities based on past experiences, such as urban renewal,” says Joe Schilling, who heads the Sustainable Communities Initiative of Virginia Tech University’s Metropolitan Institute. However, he warns, “the classic economic development quick fixes of convention centers and riverfront projects have been tried. They deliver a brief bump to the economy. But they do not address the broken systems that impede community economic development.”