From Urban Land, magazine of the Urban Land Institute: The Great Recession was a harsh wake-up call for many U.S. midwestern cities. “The recession changed the Midwest,” says Brian Vandewalle, chief executive officer, president, and principal planner at Vandewalle & Associates in Madison, Wisconsin. There is a real push by cities to build stronger, more resilient communities. A shift is afoot among people choosing to live in and around downtown versus the outlying suburbs. According to CBRE, ten of the 11 Midwest markets studied saw population growth in their downtowns from 2005 to 2015. These cities are discovering they need a core that is attractive to the top talent that high tech employers are looking for today. John Deere, for example, has its world headquarters in Moline, Illinois. The situation in downtown Moline was “completely upside-down,” says Vandewalle, with old factories and brownfields along the riverfront and no retail or housing. “You can’t have a world headquarters with a downtown central city in that kind of condition,” he says. Vandewalle & Associates has worked with the city of Moline over the course of two decades to completely reposition the market, notably redeveloping the city’s working riverfront and historic central business district. Read the full article here.
