2005 seminar

A seminar with Bruce Katz

Bruce Katz, Vice President at the Brookings Institution in Washington and founding Director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Programme, was invited to Belfast on 18 November to deliver the annual Belfast: State of the City autumn seminar at City Hall on Transforming the American City: Lessons for Belfast.

The event was chaired by Professor Peter Tyler Director of Land Economy at St Catharine's College, Cambridge.

Katz is a Vice President at the Brookings Institution in Washington and founding Director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Programme.

The programme seeks to 'redefine the challenges facing cities and metropolitan areas by publishing cutting edge research on major demographic, market, development and governance trends'. He regularly advises national, state, regional and municipal leaders on policy reforms that advance the competitiveness of metropolitan areas. He focuses particularly on reforms that promote the revitalization of central cities and older suburbs and enhance the ability of these places to attract, retain and grow the middle class.

He is currently Visiting Professor to the London School of Economics and in a recent influential report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation he reviewed United States policies and practice in regeneration over the past 40 years detailed lessons they provide for the United Kingdom. The review suggested that sustainable, long-term improvement to deprived and failing communities is not just a matter of providing better homes or more jobs but that they must become both 'neighbourhoods of choice' - which attract new, higher earning residents while encouraging local people to stay in the area - and 'neighbourhoods of connection' - providing easy access to good education and training, and job opportunities - to break the cycle of concentrated poverty.

Contact us

Policy and Business Development Unit
Development Department
Belfast City Council
Cecil Ward Buidling
4-10 Linenhall Street
Belfast
BT2 8BP

Tel: 028 9091 8764
Email: sotc@belfastcity.gov.uk