‘Conventioneers arrive without any preconceived notions. They are so ready to use the city if the city welcomes them properly. The last thing you want is a convention center/parking facility/hotel that lands like a spaceship in your downtown, one which people do not have to exit to move around.’

[Millennials] grew up idolizing the city. And one statistic

I have in my book is that 64 percent of educated Millennials decide first where they want to live, then they move there, then they look for a job. And fully 77 percent of them say that they want to live in America’s urban core. There is definitely a grow- ing demand for walkable urbanism … like Manhattan. And the closer you can get to that experience, the more compelling.

Are there in your mind any distinctions between temporary visitors and permanent residents, in terms of their habits and needs? Totally different. The wonderful thing is that, you know, full-time residents have their habits, and often you can even improve a downtown dramatically and it takes them a long time to change their habits. So people who are used to either driving through, or just not stopping or visiting in the downtown, as you improve that downtown, it takes a lot to get them to change their behavior. But the conventioneers arrive without any preconceived notions. They are so ready to use the city if the city welcomes them properly. And this is all about that interface.

In terms of encouraging walkability, what mistakes do you see cities making in developing convention centers?

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If you want any facility that you’re investing in — be it a con- vention center, be it a sports facility, anything — to truly con- tribute people to your sidewalks, then you should put some space between its different parts. And the key different parts are the facility itself, parking, and hotels. The last thing you want is a convention center/parking facility/hotel that lands like a spaceship in your downtown, one which people do not have to exit to move around. It’s a two-part deal. We’re asking conventioneers to use

the city, but in return, we’re going to make that piece of the city truly excellent. So if you take the parking deck and put it a block away, and take the hotels and put them a block or two away, and then really invest in the quality of those streets, that is how you create a mixed-use district where everyone is out walking. So this idea of anchors and paths and the mandate [to] pull

the anchors a little bit apart in order to create life between them — if you do it right, no one will complain. No one, because you’re providing them with delight. The alternative, of course, is the skybridge and this internalized facility where conventioneers can spend a week and never touch a foot on your sidewalk. Again, it’s a two-part deal. You can’t ask to separate the parking lot from the convention center and not have a bridge

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