At a recent lecture at the National Building Museum, two prominent economic development officials, Jeffrey Finkle, Executive Director and President of the National Council for Urban Economic Development, and Elizabeth Jackson, President of the International Downtown Association, explained how downtown cultural institutions and activities can create an ambience conducive to redevelopment. Finkle cited several reasons why downtowns continue to struggle in attracting business.
States often grant the largest incentives to businesses locating in ex-urban areas.
All too often, said Finkle, the GSA will relocate existing facilities or construct new ones in suburban and ex-urban areas. An additional problem for downtown rebound, Finkle explained, is the highway engineering lobby's tight control on transportation spending, much of which goes toward building new highways. Finally, as long as the development and planning process in outlying areas is much faster and less complicated than in downtowns, the majority of new construction will occur in the suburbs. According to Jackson, the last 30 years have been an experimental period for downtowns. There have been many failures in attempting to revive CBD's, but from those failures many lessons have been learned.