Here's a huge press release with more info. Sorry it is so long, but I thought some of you city lovers here might want more info! :)
“Green-Lighting Neighborhoods”
Convening of Rust Belt Lovers Lands in Larimer Sept 15-17
Topics to Include the Legacy of Racialized Urban Space in Great Lakes Cities, How Caring For Our Water Can Change Our Cities, and Protecting the “Community” in Community Development
August 29, 2011 - For the first time, the Great Lakes Urban Exchange (GLUE), a four-year-old community of younger Rust Belt residents committed to equitable and sustainable futures for their cities, will take its annual think-and-do convening out of the typical downtown corridor and into a particular neighborhood. Sponsored initially by the Brookings Institution’s Great Lakes Economic Initiative, GLUE, now a project of the Tides Center, was founded by two Rust Belt boomerangs who sought to collect a different set of stories for the world about how cities like Detroit and Pittsburgh have fared after the decline of monolithic industrial economies, not to mention all the fallout – and rebirth – that accompanied it.
GLUE has since become a community of over 2000 people, most of whom are between the ages of 18 and 40, and who call cities from Buffalo to Duluth home. GLUE has initiated conversations about public policy, launched campaigns to attract and retain talent, and provided a forum for storytelling on its website: http://www.gluespace.org.
After GLUE’s 2010 “Urban Laboratories” event in Cleveland, workshop co-facilitators Fred Brown, of the Kingsley Association, and Pat Clark, a community development consultant and principal of Jackson Clark Partners, worked with GLUE director Sarah Szurpicki to reexamine and retool the annual GLUE experience. In particular, they saw an opportunity to do more with the energy these conferences generated, by being more deliberate about forging relationships across racial, socioeconomic, and neighborhood boundaries.
While Pittsburgh has made great strides in becoming America’s “most livable city,” some neighborhoods – like Larimer – have not reaped the benefits of its redevelopment. In spite of this, Larimer is home to innovative, collaborative organizing efforts to make sure that its residents have a say in the future of their neighborhood. The future they’re envisioning is ambitiously green. The work happening there may be a model for how Rust Belt cities ensure that every resident benefits from the revitalization of our cities.
"I was really impressed by the ingenuity and commitment of the people I saw in Cleveland,” said Fred Brown, Associate Director of Program Development at The Kingsley Association, located in the East End of Pittsburgh, which will host most of the conference activities, and who has been deeply involved in the planning, “but I saw a powerful - and challenging - unexplored opportunity to bring GLUE’s natural audience to Larimer. I am proud that the Kingsley Association will provide a forum, not only for a regional conversation about social equity and urban policy, but to tell stories about Larimer’s continued evolution to become a sustainable community and the hard-working and forward thinking community members of the Larimer Consensus Group driving it. Even in Pittsburgh, there are a lot of people who have no idea about all the good work taking place just east of East Liberty, and we look forward to showing them what we’ve been up to.”
“Whether in Buffalo, Cleveland, or Milwaukee, previous GLUE gatherings have always intentionally showcased neighborhoods in the host city along a spectrum of ‘revitalization,’” GLUE Director and Detroit resident Sarah Szurpicki remarked, “but our partnerships in Pittsburgh have taken that to a new level. We have been more inclusive, more collaborative, and more community-focused than ever. And I think you’ll see the evidence of that at the conference.”
Previous conference attendees have included students, architects, filmmakers, aldermen, urban planners, foundation program officers, community organizers, conservationists, and artists. This year’s out of town participants will be as interdisciplinary, and will supplement a Pittsburgh cohort that includes 15 scholarships for members of the Larimer Consensus Group, underwritten by the Urban Redevelopment Authority.
In addition to the URA, the conference is being sponsored by the Benedum Foundation, the Pittsburgh Partnership for Neighborhood Development, and Leadership Pittsburgh, Inc.
Details about the agenda, registration, and logistics of the event can be found at http://www.gluespace.org/greenlighting.
** The agenda sketch, below, is subject to change. However, all sessions are open to the press. Please contact Sarah Szurpicki for more information: sarah@gluespace.org
Thursday, September 15th (at the Holiday Inn University Center)
1:00 — Bus Tour of Pittsburgh
4:00 — Keynote: The Kingsley Association: Engaging the Community in Community Development
5:00 — Keynote: Sala Udin, President and CEO of Coro Center for Civic Leadership, on Legacy of Racialized Space in Great Lakes Cities
6:30 — Dinner and Opening Reception at AVA and Shadow Lounge
Friday, September 16th (at the Kingsley Association)
8:30 — Water: How Caring for Our Water Can Change Our Cities, including:
· Kevin Schafer, Executive Director, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District
· Tom Joseph, Eviive Water Project
· Penn State Engaging Pittsburgh
10:00 — Best Practice Sharing and Collaborative Project Design
11:30 — Lunch
12:30 — (Re)Building Communities, including:
· Fred Brown, Kingsley Association
· Tina Clarke, Transition Towns Movement
· Chris Koch, GTECH Strategies
· Steven Glassman, Community Design Center of Pittsburgh
· Eric Walker, PUSH Buffalo
2:00 — Best Practice Sharing and Collaborative Project Design
3:30 — Site Visits:
· Burgh Bees Apiary
· Friends of the Riverfront Bike Tour
· Garfield Arts Tour: Colorize the Urban Lanscape and Green + Screen
· Grow Pittsburgh Braddock Farm
· Healcrest Urban Farm
· Nine Mile Run Walking Tour
· Garfield Arts Tour
Saturday, September 17th (at the Kingsley Association)
9:00 — Greening Our Communities, Greening Our Jobs, including:
· John Folan, Urban Design Build Studio, Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture
· Alix Levy, Pittsburgh Green Innovators Project
· Bernie Lynch, Pittsburgh Pipeline
· Khari Mosley, GTECH Strategies
10:30 — Best Practice Sharing and Collaborative Project Design
12:30 — Reexamining the Work: Focus on Youth (keynote overview followed by panel presentation from Pittsburgh youth)
1:30 — What We're Doing Together (Facilitated process of designing a project for the participants to collaborate on once the conference is concluded, taken from discussion group brainstorms)
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