American Assembly to meet in Detroit to discuss urban revitalization

Once again, the news delays my project of blogging about Contemplating the Hedgehog with the following story from the Detroit Free Press.

Experts to meet in Detroit to discuss urban revitalization
John Gallagher

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.

This comes on the heels of yesterday's post about shrinking Detroit. Looks like a hot topic (and not the store that sold Faygo to Juggalos, either).

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.

"Nation's toughest problems"--they have no idea. I'm not talking about Detroit; I talking about the issue of societal collapse and reinvention. Just don't know yet that's what they're really meeting about. Or maybe they do...

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.”

As I commented yesterday over on Kunstler's blog, I suspect the largest political unit that is aware that it is managing contraction is the City of Detroit, where they can't avoid the realization. I'm glad that people outside Detroit are realizing that its problems are not unique to the city. About time, too.

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.

I recommend you read the rest of the article.  You'll find that it's not just North Americans who are interested in our problems and offering solutions.

As I've written before, welcome to Detroit, Ground Zero of the post-industrial future. Whatever solutions are devised here for our problems will be exported to the rest of the continent. It's an exciting time to live here, and I wouldn't miss it for the world!

Finally, welcome to the readers coming over from Kunstler's blog. Stick around, as I've made a commitment to blog here every day this month.