Ehrenhalt Lecture Examines Future of Cities

Urbanist Alan Ehrenhalt, the author of The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City, will share his insights into how American cities are changing and what this means for the future of urban life in a 7:00 p.m. lecture Tuesday, October 16, in the Burchfield Penney Art Center Auditorium.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is presented by Buffalo State as an educational event celebrating Year of the City.

Ehrenhalt posits that affluent suburbanites are trading their outlying abodes tucked into cul-de-sacs for homes in the heart of cities. In 2009 and 2010 Ehrenhalt traveled to eight metro areas, including Cleveland, Chicago, and Philadelphia, to conduct interviews for the book, according to Bruce Fisher, director of the Center for Economic and Policy Studies at Buffalo State and visiting professor of economics and finance.

"Alan has something very specific that most commentators don’t have," Fisher said. "He spent 20 years as editor of Governing magazine, the leading journal covering how state, county, and city governments cope. He’s not a theorist. He is a person who has talked to county executives and mayors and watched the ebb and flow of city finances."

This is Enhrenhalt’s fourth book. Additionally, he serves as executive editor of Stateline, a news service about state government that is part of the Pew Charitable Trusts. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review and the paper’s op-ed page, the Washington Post Book World, the New Republic, and the Wall Street Journal.

Fisher anticipates that Ehrenhalt will deliver important information at a time when Buffalo is trying to grow its economy and invest in city structures while recovering from years of shrinking jobs and population.

"He’s not just writing about the trend of the city/suburbs inversion," Fisher said, "but also the tremendous reality that some places are going to succeed and some are not."

For more information, call (716) 878-6011 or visit www.burchfieldpenney.org.