Anchor Institutions Task Force

At the New Partners for Smart Growth conference, organized by the Local Government Commission, on a field workshop I got to talking with someone from a big university town in Pennsylvania and we were talking about leveraging local universities for community revitalization.  (It turns out, although we don't recall meeting, we were also on the same tour at a conference in Pittsburgh back in 2006.)

I followed up our conversation with some links and past entries, and while looking up something related to Johns Hopkins University--the current president had been at Franklin & Marshall College and was a force for community connected revitalization there in Lancaster too ("Franklin & Marshall – City in Motion," F&M Magazine), I came across the mention of an initiative supported by HUD, the Anchor Institutions Task Force, which includes among its activities, an annual conference.

AITF tends to focus on "eds and meds," colleges/universities and hospitals/medical campuses, and leveraging their presence and economic power for community revitalization.  The 2015 conference is in October in New York City.