City in Transition Initiative

The Cities in Transition Initiative is a three-year project designed to build a sustained network of leading policymakers and practitioners in five older industrial U.S. cities: Detroit and Flint, Michigan; Cleveland and Youngstown, Ohio; and the greater Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania region. Through annual study tours, working meetings, and charrettes, participants in this network will work together closely to articulate critical policy challenges facing their communities and to identify and adapt innovative solutions that European older industrial cities have implemented to address the myriad challenges associated with urban disinvestment and economic restructuring. In each of its three years, the project will zero in on a different policy area affecting these cities: respectively, land use; manufacturing; and workforce development.