The bottom-up process is the key to renewal, revival, Richard Florida says

Richard Florida is that creative class guy. Some agree with him, some don’t. Wherever you fall on Florida, he does make some good points in his piece in the Atlantic that Detroit should pay attention to.Excerpt:The most successful shrinking strategies, like Pittsburgh’s, are not
top-down affairs driven by all-knowing governments, but organic,
bottom-up, community-based efforts. While Pittsburgh government and
business leadership pressed for large-scale urban renewal –
stadium-building, convention centers, and more far-fetched schemes for
local mag-lev trains – its real  turnaround was driven by organic,
bottom-up initiatives. Community groups, local foundations, and
non-profits – not city hall or business-led economic development groups
–  were the driving forces behind neighborhood stabilization and
redevelopment, university-based economic development, water-front
revitalization, park improvements, and green building among others. 
This kind of bottom-up process takes considerable time and
perseverance. In Pittsburgh’s case, it took the better part of a
generation to achieve stability and the potential for longer-term
revival.
All of which brings us back to a big question: What about people
versus place strategies? I agree with Glaeser: people must be the
priority. Especially in tough economic times, public investment should
flow toward people. Early childhood investments, as James Heckman has shown, are the most important, longest-running and highest-paying investments we make.Read the entire article here.