New life for Downtown as an innovation district

Editor's note: This article appears in the Summer 2024 issue of Governing magazine, which you can subscribe to here .

In certain sectors, part-time or full-time remote work has become a structural feature of the post-pandemic economy. As a result, cities need to act quickly to diversify their downtowns. To do so, they can’t rely solely on the office-and-leisure strategies of the past two decades, but rather return to their historic role as hubs of enterprise and innovation.

Many cities are beginning to focus on maximizing office space for residential use. This move is essential, but cities need to go further and connect their downtown revitalization to the megatrends and unprecedented federal spending that are reshaping the entire U.S. economy. A new economic order is emerging in the United States, driven by the reshoring of manufacturing, decarbonizing the economy, and transformative federal and state investments in climate, defense, manufacturing, and infrastructure.

Given the land, energy and logistical demands of many industrial facilities, this new geography will span metropolitan areas. But downtowns can play a fundamental role in this economic restructuring, as this new order demands continuous innovation in technologies, financial products, market processes and institutions.

Of course, downtowns won't suddenly become home to mega-semiconductor facilities, but they could become platforms for universities, medical facilities, innovative parts of major industrial companies, advanced research centers and laboratories, startups and large corporations in fields like defense technology, clean tech, medtech, and fintech, and help lead the transition to climate-friendly buildings, renewable energy, and a modern electric grid.

Some of this movement is already underway. In Newark, New Jersey, hard tech incubator HAX is attracting pre-seed startups focused on emerging clean tech, robotics, neurotech, and biomanufacturing, revitalizing a historic department store as the hub of a new entrepreneurial ecosystem. In Chicago, Fulton Labs in the West Loop has become a magnet for bioscience companies and research labs. In Syracuse, New York, HII, the nation’s largest military shipbuilder, opened a new engineering facility in a former department store. In Dayton, Ohio, fast-growing advanced air mobility company Infinity Labs has secured space in the historic Dayton Arcade. Even in San Francisco, the epicenter of the city’s doom loop, a surge in generative AI startups is driving an early recovery in the commercial real estate sector.

As downtowns become new innovation hubs, federal and state infrastructure investments could also be mobilized to enable mixed-use innovation campuses by renovating or converting highways and rail yards and leveraging underutilized public land around transit and train stations. This, too, is underway. In New Haven, Connecticut, renovations to Route 34 are enabling the creation of Downtown Crossing, a burgeoning innovation district anchored by cutting-edge life science research at Yale University. In Philadelphia, plans to revitalize the 30th Street Station will further spur the growth of a gene and cell therapy hub home to Drexel University, the University of Pennsylvania, top hospitals, and companies like Spark Therapeutics.

Federal leadership will be key to expanding these organic efforts. In the late 1970s, President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order prioritizing downtown office space for federal agencies. A 2024 version could direct the Department of Defense to use vacant downtown office space for defense-related research, development and technology companies, as well as housing for defense employees.

If cities can fully embrace the possibilities of a new economic order, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the disappearance of America's downtowns will be greatly exaggerated.

Governings opinion columns reflect the opinions of their writers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Governings editors or management.

Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://www.governing.com/magazine/new-life-for-downtowns-as-innovation-districts The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

What Are The Main Benefits Of Comparing Car Insurance Quotes Online

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / June 24, 2020, / Compare-autoinsurance.Org has launched a new blog post that presents the main benefits of comparing multiple car insurance quotes. For more info and free online quotes, please visit https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/the-advantages-of-comparing-prices-with-car-insurance-quotes-online/ The modern society has numerous technological advantages. One important advantage is the speed at which information is sent and received. With the help of the internet, the shopping habits of many persons have drastically changed. The car insurance industry hasn't remained untouched by these changes. On the internet, drivers can compare insurance prices and find out which sellers have the best offers. View photos The advantages of comparing online car insurance quotes are the following: Online quotes can be obtained from anywhere and at any time. Unlike physical insurance agencies, websites don't have a specific schedule and they are available at any time. Drivers that have busy working schedules, can compare quotes from anywhere and at any time, even at midnight. Multiple choices. Almost all insurance providers, no matter if they are well-known brands or just local insurers, have an online presence. Online quotes will allow policyholders the chance to discover multiple insurance companies and check their prices. Drivers are no longer required to get quotes from just a few known insurance companies. Also, local and regional insurers can provide lower insurance rates for the same services. Accurate insurance estimates. Online quotes can only be accurate if the customers provide accurate and real info about their car models and driving history. Lying about past driving incidents can make the price estimates to be lower, but when dealing with an insurance company lying to them is useless. Usually, insurance companies will do research about a potential customer before granting him coverage. Online quotes can be sorted easily. Although drivers are recommended to not choose a policy just based on its price, drivers can easily sort quotes by insurance price. Using brokerage websites will allow drivers to get quotes from multiple insurers, thus making the comparison faster and easier. For additional info, money-saving tips, and free car insurance quotes, visit https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/ Compare-autoinsurance.Org is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc. "Online quotes can easily help drivers obtain better car insurance deals. All they have to do is to complete an online form with accurate and real info, then compare prices", said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company. CONTACT: Company Name: Internet Marketing CompanyPerson for contact Name: Gurgu CPhone Number: (818) 359-3898Email: [email protected]: https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/ SOURCE: Compare-autoinsurance.Org View source version on accesswire.Com:https://www.Accesswire.Com/595055/What-Are-The-Main-Benefits-Of-Comparing-Car-Insurance-Quotes-Online View photos