Virtual Seminars are engaging and interactive learning opportunities for small groups of mayors and their senior staff. Each one-hour seminar features a deep-dive presentation on a single timely topic, followed by a moderated group discussion among the attendees.
Virtual Seminar: Attaining Quality Urban Design through City Leadership
This seminar, recorded July 17, 2024, explored ways that you, as mayor, can embed design thinking and design excellence into your administration. From mayor’s design awards to cabinet positions, to the design of city hall itself, how you shape your administration is key to creating more livable, equitable, and thriving communities.
This seminar revisits a presentation originally shared at the United States Conference of Mayors 92nd Annual Meeting in June 2024. Â Â
Watch the presentation (38:30):
Key Takeaways
Good urban design is about creating places for people. It occurs at the intersection of key city elements: public realm and mobility, land use promoting healthy and fair development, economic development through community wealth-building, and empowering communities to express their history, art, culture, and identity.
Mayors play a pivotal role in leading urban design initiatives. Their leadership unites city agencies, developers, design professionals, and the community to shape the built environment thoughtfully.
+ Showcase great work to set expectations and inspire.
Start small by identifying and celebrating projects that exemplify good design in your city. Mayor’s Design Awards programs like those in Denver and Milwaukee celebrate and recognize well-designed projects, fostering a culture that values quality urban design. Â
+ Redefine City Hall as a civic commons and community hub.
Consider user experience in City Hall to make it a welcoming space for both residents and employees. Cities like Oakland Park are building new city halls as anchor tenants within mixed-use developments, and a case study from Chicago shows how co-locating services like affordable housing with public libraries maximizes investments and enhances community engagement.
+ Leverage civic partnerships to amplify impact.
Civic design centers like those in Charleston and Nashville provide resources and expertise, helping cities achieve design goals without shouldering all the work alone. Consider engaging existing partners and universities to incubate civic design initiatives.
+ Organize city government to prioritize planning and design.
Anchor your administration with planning and design services closely aligned with the mayor’s office. Born from a recent reorganization of city departments, Tulsa’s Department of City Experience highlights the importance of structuring government to focus on resident experience and urban design.
+ Implement processes like design review commissions.
Form advisory design review panels to leverage private-sector expertise. New York City’s Public Design Commission offers one model for providing clear design guidance and ensuring high-quality urban development.
+ Communicate the value of good design effectively.
Use clear visuals and social media to communicate with residents (and staff) about how design impacts their daily lives, as demonstrated by Boston’s approach to discussing zoning changes.
+ Embrace good design as an investment with long-term value.
Recognize that while quality design may have higher initial costs, it offers significant benefits in community well-being and city attractiveness. Incorporate design priorities into long-term planning and capital projects, as New York City does for affordable housing projects.
Speaker
Gerardo Garcia
Founder
The Urbanism Bureau
Gerardo Garcia is a licensed Architect and Urban Designer focused on driving equitable development in communities that need it most.
Gerardo’s professional training and leadership in public interest design, have allowed him to spearhead Chicago’s most innovative planning and urban design efforts.
In his prior leadership roles in city government, he was responsible for ensuring that Chicago’s economic development goals were supported by thoughtfully designed buildings that enhance neighborhoods where it matters most: on the streets and sidewalks where people live and work. Gerardo’s planning and design leadership has supported over $14B in economic development for the City of Chicago – characterized by community-driven engagement and the use of design excellence as an economic development tool.
IMAGE: BRUCE BOLLING BUILDING, ROXBURY, MA | SASAKI, ANTON GRASSL/ESTO