On September 21st and 22nd, Troy will hold the first annual Statewide Neighborhood Revitalization Conference, a grassroots effort to share information about community-building efforts throughout New York State. The conference will be held at Russell Sage College in Troy.

Things will kick off on Friday evening, Sept. 21st, with a free, open to the public keynote address from famed writer, speaker, and local activist James Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency and The Geography of Nowhere. You won’t want to miss hearing his interesting perspective

Registration for workshops and discussions on Saturday, September 22nd, will open soon at http://nyneighborhoods.org/2012/. The day’s events will start early with breakfast and another keynote speech this time from housing, planning, and community development advocate and scholar Alan Mallach, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Following will be a large panel discussion and breakout workshops on a variety of interesting topics with community leaders from across New York State.

If you would like to help out at this event, organizers are looking for volunteers! Please contact Dorcas Rose at icatroy@verizon.net for more information.