Tonight: Book launch, forum to address solutions for America's ailing cities

(From email)

New Book Offers “Legacy Cities” Best Advice from Nation’s Leading Urbanists.

Authors’ Forum Headlines Book Launch
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Forum: 5:00 p.m.—6:30 p.m.

Reception: 6:30 p.m.—7:30 p.m.

The Brookings Institution 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C

Born out of a major conference in Detroit – now the nation’s symbol for cities that defined the nation’s 20th century economy but find themselves in search of a new identity – a new book, Rebuilding America’s Legacy Cities: New Directions for the Industrial Heartland, explores strategies for retooling, reimagining and re-building these cities.

Published by the Columbia University-based American Assembly, the book from America’s most notable urbanists is a blueprint for cities, towns and neighborhoods seeking to recast their futures in the changed world economy and adopt policies that encourage the adaptive repurposing of land to make their cities competitive.

The book will be formally launched on January 26th at an afternoon forum and reception at The Brookings Institution. Three project co-chairs and co-sponsors – former Mayor and Secretary of Housing and Urban Affairs Henry Cisneros, former Columbus Ohio Mayor Gregory Lashutka, and Dan Kildee, former Genesee County Treasurer and current President of the Center for Community Progress – will join Legacy Cities Project Director Paul Brophy; Hunter Morrison, Program Director of the Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium; Lavea Brachman, Executive Director of the Greater Ohio Policy Center and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; and Alan Mallach, book editor and Brookings Nonresident Senior fellow.

“Few cities and towns in the United States have escaped the shrinking revenues, high unemployment and dwindling private investment that characterize today’s economy, with ‘legacy cities’ hit hardest,” says Secretary Cisneros. “That dynamic can and must be reversed – nothing less than the very vitality of our nation is at stake.”