The new newly incorporated Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corporation (Land Bank) holds great promise for helping cities reutilize distressed properties, rebuild neighborhoods and shore up declining tax bases. As a partner with cities and other units of government, lenders and individual property owners, the Land Bank has the potential to restore housing markets, rebuild communities and change development patterns on a regional scale, targeting future growth and development to core areas.

Join us as we take an in-depth look at the Land Bank and the roles it can play as a partner in rebuilding our communities. Featuring Jim Rokakis, Cuyahoga County Treasurer and Gus Frangos, President, Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corporation.

Keynote Address: Alyssa Katz, author of Our Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us and consultant with the Pratt Center for Community Development in New York

Building our Future Beyond Foreclosure continues with a discussion of what proposed policy, programmatic and regulatory reforms now under consideration in Washington might mean for affordable housing providers, low and moderate income households seeking access to good credit products, and others seeking to keep neighborhoods thriving. Panelists will explore how Community Development Finance Institutions, the Community Reinvestment Act, Individual Development Accounts, and other programmatic and regulatory reforms currently under discussion can be used to channel opportunity into the best possible outcomes for households and neighborhoods.

Read blog entry about this forum on Rustwire.com

Featuring C. Clare Hinrich, Associate Professor of rural sociology at Penn State University and editor of the new book, Remaking the North American Food System: Strategies for Sustainability. Dr. Hinrichs is widely viewed as an expert on the intersection between agriculture, food systems and the environment. This forum will focus on the state of Northeast Ohio's food system from production to distribution and consumption. It will explore ways that Northeast Ohio can craft and sustain local food systems to improve social, economic, and environmental outcomes in our communities through the innovative use of land.

There Goes the Neighborhood explores the evolution of communities here and abroad. The exhibition focuses on how architecture and landscape embody a neighborhood's past, present, and potential future.

As part of the Brookings Institution/Greater Ohio Restoring Prosperity to Ohio Initiative, join Policy Bridge and corporate, civic, political, academic and philanthropic leaders from the Cleveland area to explore alignment of the Cleveland urban revitalization agenda with state reforms.

Join the Forum Program in welcoming Alex Kotlowitz, an award winning author, journalist and regular contributor to the New York Times Magazine. See his recent article about foreclosures in Cleveland “All Boarded Up” which ran on March 8, 2009 at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/magazine/08Foreclosure-t.html

Keeping the Faith in Slavic Village in The Plain Dealer, May 12, 2009.

There are no neighbors here, by Marc Lefkowitz, GreenCityBlueLake Blog, May 12, 2009.

Survey results from the forum program

Alex Kotlowitz

Ralf Ebert, Director, STADTart, Consultancy for City, Culture and Planning, Dortmund, Germany and Lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences in Werningerode/Harz. Germany discussed the relationship of artists, culture, creativity and urban development. His talk focused on the Ruhr, a region that comprises 53 towns and cities and is home to 5.3 million people– all within the “borders” of what was originally known as the Ruhr Coal Settlement Association, created in 1920.

Blog: Lessons from Germany's Rust Belt, by Marc Lefkowitz, GreenCityBlueLake

Panelist Bios
David Beach
Lavea Brachman
Andrew Jackson
Robert B. Jaquay
Wendy Kellogg, Ph.D.

Plain Dealer Op-Ed: NE Ohio can lead the way in helping cities turn the corner on foreclosure crisis, by Kurt Karakul and Kathryn Wertheim Hexter

Rust Wire Blog

Mark Pinto Beyond Foreclosure drawings

Discussion
Questions & Answers

The foreclosure crisis in Cuyahoga County did not happen overnight. Similarily, the strategies for moving our communities and residents Beyond Foreclosure will take time to evolve. Over the coming year, the Levin College Forum will hold a series of forums that will look Beyond Foreclosures to strategies for creating a new, more prosperous future for Northeast Ohio's neighborhoods and communities.

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