ABSTRACT
Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are the preferred vehicle in the USA to foster urban revitalization. Properly structured, PPPs can increase vibrancy in urban employment centers by offering public subsidies commensurate with public benefits. The logic and methods to structure PPPs are explained and illustrated, focusing on ways to lower costs and reduce risk. Cost reduction methods have been widely discussed whereas ways to reduce near-term market risk and long-term financial risk have been largely ignored. Strategies to promote vibrancy in weak or strongly vibrant centers are quite different. Weak centers need strategic public and private investments to change perceptions of risk. Increasing the attractiveness of some places requires ignoring other places given resource constraints. Stronger centers need ways to increase density, affordability, and diversity without undermining the vibrancy already attained. Providing workforce housing, energizing the pedestrian, increasing critical mass without damaging uniqueness, preserving iconic places and open space, and resolving conflicts between different downtown activities are the approaches suggested. Supporting export/traded sectors should take priority over adding urban amenities. Increasing the vibrancy of urban centers, especially downtowns, by attending to export services is becoming more urgent as these sectors, often located in urban centers, come to constitute the most viable part of the metro economy’s economic base.
