A sustainable network for leaders from Detroit, Michigan and Torino, Italy supported by the Kresge Foundation and organized by the German Marshall Fund of the United States

Project Summary

Re-Imagining Detroit: The Detroit-Torino Partnership is a 3-year initiative designed to expose leaders from the city of Detroit to the lessons learned from Torino, Italy’s economic rebirth and industrial renaissance over the past three decades.

Like Detroit today, Torino suffered from a severe collapse of its auto industry, which had dominated the city’s economy since the end of World War II. After years of economic and political upheaval, Torino successfully diversified its industrial and manufacturing base, charting a new course toward an identity as a thriving international city and culminating in a successful bid to host the 2006 Winter Olympics.

Through annual study tours and a series of high level exchanges between civic leaders, this project will bring together a small but close coalition of representatives and leaders in order to deliver a set of best practices aimed toward the regeneration and continued growth of both cities. Following each study tour, the program will maintain momentum by fostering a series of individualized meetings between participants from each city.

The aim of these ongoing exchanges is to engender a relationship between the two cities that encompasses not merely government agencies but foundations, civil society institutions, universities, and businesses. These relationships and the outgrowth of cooperation that will spring from them will enable each city to develop a set of policy recommendations and practices tailored specifically to economic and planning challenges they will face in the years to come.

Year One (2010-11): Industrial Upheaval and Renaissance

Study Tour: From November 14-20, 2010, GMF led an inaugural delegation of Detroiters to Torino, headed up by Mayor David Bing and including high-level city staffers; an urban planning consultant; leaders from the academic, business, and non-profit sectors; and journalists. Read more.

Year One (2010-11): Urban Markets Study Tour

Study Tour: From July 18-22, 2011 the German Marshall Fund’s Urban and Regional Policy program led a delegation of practitioners from Detroit, Michigan to Turin, Italy to examine Turin’s network of open-air (urban) markets. Read more.

Year Two (2012): Detroit-Torino Innovation Clusters

Study Tour: From March 26-30, 2012 the German Marshall Fund’s Urban and Regional Policy program led the third in a series of high-level study tours of Detroit practitioners to Turin. The study tour connected leaders in each city to exchange ideas on urban innovation clusters and economic diversification.  Building on significant successes in diversifying its economy, the City of Turin is seeking to expand its focus on innovation.  At the same time, stakeholders in Detroit are leading efforts to develop a region-wide innovation economy in southeast Michigan.  By leveraging the world-class academic, research, and economic development institutions that exist in the region – as Turin did – these stakeholders are promoting a powerful economic development strategy that could have a potentially transformative impact for Detroit and southeast Michigan. The study tour accomplished two major objectives: 1) expose the Detroit delegation to the vision of the major institutional actors driving Turin’s innovation economy, including the government, private, academic, and philanthropic sectors and; 2) provide examples of the programmatic and policy initiatives undertaken by these actors that might be relevant to Detroit and southeast Michigan. Read more.

Workshop: On June 13, 2012, the Urban and Regional Policy program re-convened the Detroit-Torino “Innovation Clusters Study Tour” group for a follow-up meeting at the Kresge Foundation’s office in downtown Detroit to continue the conversation of economic innovation in Detroit, and to explore routes for further collaboration with Torino. 

Year Three (2013)

Peer Exchange: From March 10-14, 2013, the German Marshall Fund's Urban and Regional Policy program hosted a peer exchange focused on informing the development of the Energy Center Piemonte (EC), a new energy research and development incubator facility in Torino. The exchange connected a delegation of stakeholders from Torino charged with the development of the EC to their peers engaged in related activities in the Detroit region.  It addressed critical issues around the operation of the facility, including the business model, possible public private partnerships, and business attraction strategies.