Reif Larsen: The Future of Main Street in Small Legacy Cities, Zube Guest Lecture

Post pandemic, as small cities embrace the opportunities of federal infrastructure funding, what have we
learned about the main streets that form the downtown cores of our communities? What is the future of the
storefront, sidewalks, and public spaces in these small urban ecosystems? Case studies from Troy, Hudson,
Kingston, Newburgh.

Reif Larsen founded The Future of Small Cities Institute (www.futureofsmallcities.org) in 2020. A novelist and
journalist, he has written widely on cities in transition, including London, Detroit, Sarajevo, Los Angeles,
Havana, and Gothenburg. His work has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, GQ and others.
His first novel, The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet, was a New York Times bestseller, was translated into
twenty-seven languages, and was adapted into a movie by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie). He lives in Troy, NY
with his wife and two children.