Why mayors from around the world are coming to Detroit

John Gallagher | Detroit Free Press

Detroit's reputation has slowly morphed from the international symbol of Rust Belt ruin to that of an innovator showing how to reinvent a post-industrial city.

Now the mayors of many of the world's leading cities will be coming to Detroit this fall to see for themselves what lessons they can take from Detroit's nascent revival.

CityLab, a collaboration of The Atlantic magazine, the Aspen Institute, and Bloomberg Philanthropies of former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg will host its annual meeting of mayors and urban experts at the Westin Book Cadillac in late October.

CityLab Detroit, Oct. 28-30, will be led by Bloomberg himself. The by-invitation conference will feature a series of site visits, discussions and networking aimed at helping urban leaders from around the globe learn from Detroit's recent experience.

While it will be by-invitation only for attendees, the sessions will be live streamed at TheAtlantic.com.

CityLab has been held five times in the past — in New York, Los Angeles, London, Miami, and Paris. Jim Anderson, head of government innovation programs for Bloomberg Philanthropies, said Detroit became an obvious choice for this year's event.

“We’re coming to Detroit this year because there’s a heck of a lot to learn from Detroit," Anderson told me. "I think there’s incredible curiosity in the community of mayors and people that are working on city issues on the recent story of Detroit and its resurgence. So we’re looking forward to elevating some of that and learning from it."

Margaret Low, president of AtlanticLIVE, the magazine's events division, echoed that.

"There wasn’t a doubt in anybody’s mind that Detroit was one of the most exciting stories we could possibly tell, and that it was a perfect backdrop as we try to look at what the opportunities for cities, not just across the cities but around the world, would be."

About 40 to 50 mayors from around the globe are expected to attend, along with a roster of urban experts, academics, artists and activists. The overarching theme of this year's conference in Detroit will be opportunity — jobs, workforce development, artistic endeavors, business growth, entrepreneurialism.

Specific topics will range from the future of transportation to housing, public health, and economic mobility.

"We are grateful to The Atlantic, the Aspen Institute and Bloomberg Philanthropies for bringing this year's CityLab to Detroit,” Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said in a statement. “This is truly an exciting time in our city, with so many visible signs of progress and of work yet to be done. Many of the topics that will be discussed, such as housing, transportation and opportunity, are the same issues we are working on every day. We look forward to listening and sharing our experiences.”

What comes out of each CityLab is less a final report than an on-going series of relationships and working partnerships.

"What ends up happening is that the mayors and the urban leaders themselves come together and they begin relationships that have lasting results – to work together, to think together, to do projects together," Low said.

It should be an exciting conference, and I can't think of a better site for a CityLab conference than Detroit. Despite its ongoing problems that include high rates of poverty, joblessness, and blight, the city has provided plenty of examples of urban innovation of late.

There was Detroit's successful trip through municipal bankruptcy in 2013-14, and the city's ongoing attempts to ensure that affordable housing and community benefits become part of the city's revival.

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There have been many advances that happened outside of city hall, too. Philanthropy has played a major role in Detroit's recent revitalization, from helping pay for the Grand Bargain during the bankruptcy to underwriting efforts for workforce training, education, arts and culture, and more.

Then, too, the role of public authorities and conservancies that took over and turned around failing city operations like Cobo Center and Eastern Market deserves more study.

And so, too, do grass roots efforts by neighborhood activists who turned vacant urban sites into community gardens, artists colonies, and more, often without any help or direction from city government.

But if Detroit has notched many successes, the city's failures ought to be on display, too — if only to elicit possible solutions from the visitors.

The mayors coming from around the world might be accustomed to expansive public transit networks in their cities — and they may be appalled at Detroit's anemic and dysfunctional public transportation, such as it is.

And while the visitors may be impressed by the solid progress in the greater downtown, where dozens of developments large and small are underway, they may note the contrast with Detroit's still-struggling neighborhoods, where blight and poverty rank as major problems.

But whatever impression Detroit leaves with its visitors, I hope this host city takes away as much from the visitors as it gives them. These mayors and other experts are on the front lines of urban revitalization around the world.

Let's do all we can to learn from them.

Contact John Gallagher: 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jgallagherfreep.