The Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, together with the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations, is sponsoring a one-day conference today in Worcester called "The State of the Cities: Revitalization Strategies for Smaller Cities in Massachusetts" (PDF).
A highlight of the conference is the release of an identically-named report (PDF) by Jamaica Plain-based consultant Karen Sunnarborg on 38 Massachusetts cities’ trends and possible best practices for their revitalization. Case studies include Springfield as well as Fitchburg, Lynn, New Bedford, Salem, and Waltham.
The keynote speaker at lunch is Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink, based in Oakland, California, which recently launched a major initiative on rebuilding America’s older core cities, captured in a 2005 174-page policy document (PDF).
Conference attendees will bandy about ideas for next steps to take with the governor-elect and the new state legislature to renew attention to cities. They will also listen to practitioners in four key areas share their own best practices. On affordable housing, HAP, Inc.‘s Executive Director Peter Gagliardi is slated to talk, along with Urban Strategy America Fund President Kirk Sykes, who got a personal tour of Springfield recently. Also subjects of discussion: immigration, downtown revitalization, and economic development. On the latter, David Soule of Northeastern’s Center for Urban and Regional Policy is expected to speak; he was involved in the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties study (PDF) of Springfield in comparison to other Massachusetts cities.
