600+ people attend Reclaiming Vacant Properties in Pittsburgh
October 2nd, 2007By Stephen Lee Davis
Last week, nearly 650 people gathered in Pittsburgh, PA for Reclaiming Vacant Properties, the first ever national conference on the topic. The conference was the culmination of years of dreaming and working by the National Vacant Properties Campaign. Over 500 people were registered before the event, but the large number of walk-up registrants Monday morning nearly filled it to capacity, resulting in a packed ballroom for two days in the Omni William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh. Needless to say, we were thrilled with the turnout.
There were a large number of participants from Cleveland, Akron, Dayton, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and other Rust Belt cities that have struggled with the issue in large numbers for many years, but participants of all stripes came from all over the country to learn about the issue and pool their knowledge.
Over the next few weeks, you’ll be able to download powerpoints and MP3′s of some of the presentations, as well as a full speaker list on the conference website. We took plenty of photos of the conference and parts of the city during one of the mobile workshops, which you can access through the slideshows below. If you were at the conference or want to use some of the photos for non-profit use, you can find permission info and contact information with the album online.
There was some good local news coverage as well, including a nearly three-minute piece on one Pittsburgh network’s evening news.
— Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
— KDKA TV News coverage
Around Pittsburgh
Click on the right corner of the
slideshow to view them on the web
October 31st, 2007 at 11:35 am
Related post from the Planetizen Interchange by Scott Page, “An Unheralded Conference“
June 1st, 2009 at 3:41 pm
[...] When the first conference took place in Pittsburgh more than a year and a half ago, the landscape of our country looked quite different. Foreclosure and vacancy were problems most associated with struggling older cities — though even at the time the foreclosure crisis was far more widespread than many perceived. Today, there’s hardly a community that hasn’t had to deal in some way with the issues brought on by foreclosure and abandonment. The solutions and strategies for change covered by this conference are more important than ever. [...]