By DAN MALLOY
This past Friday I had the opportunity to speak a Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Conference titled “Reinventing Older Communities: How Does Place Matter?”, along with Mayor Mike Nutter of Philadelphia and Mayor Jay Williams of Youngstown, Ohio. The audience included the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, community development practitioners, bankers and researchers.
Stamford certainly qualifies for the panel discussion – it is nearly 370 years old and has deep historical roots in the industrial era. As I said to the Fed participants, however, Stamford today is a very different city. It is a growing – not shrinking – urban area that still enjoys tremendous diversity across religion, race, and socio-economic segments of the population. It has become a hub of clean industry activity, with a huge presence from the financial sector, as well as a film production center for the state.
I talked about Stamford’s affordable housing initiative, where developers are required to construct affordable housing in conjunction with building projects or pay into a special fund that goes toward affordable housing initiatives.
The great thing about having a vision for your community is it is a constant work in progress. Stamford’s harbor-front South End, for instance, is still a highly industrialized area ready to be brought into the 21st century. Thanks to a $3.5 billion investment led by developer Antares, we are entering a new era for the city, where there will be mixed-use commercial, residential, and retail along a waterfront that will connect the rest of the city for the first time.
I was pleased and honored to have been included in the discussion, and learned a great deal about other communities, as well. As a number of people told me after the presentation, they were going to take the Stamford experience back home, and hopefully make a difference in their own communities. You can listen to a nine-minute segment of the program by clicking here.
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