BANGOR – Donovan Rypkema doesn’t claim to know what the future holds for America’s downtowns.

What he is certain of, however, is that diverse downtowns are not only an antidote to “Generica” but also the key to a community’s economic survival in the age of economic and cultural globalization.

Rypkema was the keynote speaker for this year’s Maine Downtown Center conference Thursday held in Bangor’s downtown. The center’s third annual conference drew an estimated 225 participants from throughout Maine and beyond.

Community leaders, planners, developers, merchants, economists and arts groups were among the constituencies represented during the daylong event, which featured networking opportunities and more than a dozen workshops in several downtown venues, including Norumbega Hall, City Hall and Bangor Public Library.

Workshop topics ranged from “Motivating Merchants on Main Street” to “A Recipe for Profitable Redevelopment Downtown.” Some of the issues tackled Thursday were parking perceptions, sprawl, tax increment financing and the Community Development Block Grant program.

A principal of Place Economics, a Washington, D.C.-based real estate and economic development and consulting firm, Rypkema is a nationally renowned expert on downtown revitalization. During his address at Norumbega Hall, Rypkema explored economic and cultural forces that will affect downtowns in the future.

“The most significant impacts of the global economy will not be at the national or even the state level,” he said. “The biggest impacts will be local.”

Downtowns, he said, have been and still are where people gather to mourn, celebrate and protest. They are virtually the only place where the bank president and the homeless person come into direct contact.

“Downtowns’ strength is not homogeneity with everywhere else, the strength of [a] downtown is its differentiation from anywhere else,” he said.

Diversity used to happen in local schools, churches and in neighborhoods. With the exception of historic neighborhoods, that’s no longer the case, he said.

“We can deny, if we choose, these factors – the Internet, globalization, diversity of populations – but that means we’ll be left behind in our businesses, in our jobs and in our downtowns,” he said. “There simply is no place that is immune to the rapid changes that are taking place in the world.” To that end, vibrant, diverse downtowns can be a force to be reckoned with, he said.

If a community is to compete in a global economy, downtown revitalization must be central to the strategy, he said. It is where new businesses, startup businesses, innovative businesses and creative businesses are going to be fostered and encouraged, he said.

The conference was sponsored by the Maine Downtown Center, a program of the nonprofit Maine Development Foundation.

Bangor was chosen from among five communities to serve as host for this year’s event, now in its third year. The conference was held in Saco last year and in Belfast the year before.

The idea behind the conference is to bring together people working to revive their downtowns to share ideas and learn from each other, according to Downtown Center coordinator Darcy Rollins.

During the conference, A. William Kany received the center’s first Downtown Leadership Award for his efforts to improve downtown Saco. Peter Cox of Georgetown received the Downtown Visionary Award for having the courage to experiment with the concept that environmental goals can be reached through economic principles.