MICD Just City Mayoral Fellowship

There is no cost to participating mayors or cities; there are no registration fees and MICD covers all travel expenses. Resource Team members receive a modest honorarium for their participation from MICD.

The MICD Just City Mayoral Fellowship is much like a graduate school course, with a small group of mayors doing a deep dive into the history and practice of justice and the built environment. Over the course of a semester, design leaders from around the country lead weekly lectures and discussions on a variety of curated topics. The Fellowship concludes with each mayor presenting a capstone project (manifesto) from their city and receiving expert feedback from a select group of design leaders, much like at traditional MICD sessions.

Typical MICD Institute Sessions are 2.5-day intensive technical assistance workshops where mayors engage leading design and development experts to find solutions to the most critical planning and design challenges facing their cities, through the exploration of specific projects.

The MICD Just City Mayoral Fellowship instead brings together a small cohort of mayors and key staff members for both virtual and in-person gatherings over a semester-long program. Fellowship participants can expect a similarly engaging, candid, collaborative atmosphere in which to gain new frameworks for solving their cities’ challenges. The Fellowship curriculum and case studies are all explicitly focused on justice and the built environment, taking participants through a series of lectures and workshops which culminate in a manifesto of actionable, context-specific strategies for each mayor’s area of focus.

The expression of interest for the 2025 MICD Just City Mayoral Fellowship cohort closed on November 15, 2024; the next Expression of Interest period will open in Fall 2025. Please note that participation is extremely limited (up to 8 participants per year) and may be geared towards different city challenges and themes each year. Priority may be given to mayors who have previously attended an MICD Institute Session, though it is not required. Invitations will be extended in early December.

We also encourage you to fill out our interest form or contact MICD staff directly to discuss the program in more detail.

Each mayor selects two key staff members to participate in the MICD Just City Mayoral Fellowship virtual classes and closing workshop. Participation in the opening convening is limited to mayors.

During the first few weeks of the Fellowship, the course curators will assist you with selecting an appropriate project for the current cohort.

Past projects have addressed topics such as:

• Redeveloping industrial sites as centers of health, connection, and resiliency
• Building economic opportunity and access alongside new community centers
• Reimagining underutilized parks as welcoming community connectors
• Neighborhood-scale planning to build wealth and improve quality of life in immigrant communities
• Maximizing the impact of improved transit and mobility infrastructure
• Reconnecting across highways and other disruptive infrastructure
• Stabilizing neighborhoods experiencing rapid displacement through policy and planning
• Transforming distressed corridors through public and private investments

The MICD Just City Mayoral Fellowship involves a semester-long commitment to weekly classes and ongoing project work. MICD will provide detailed information about preparing for your cohort.

Before the Fellowship, you will select two staff members who will join the virtual classes and collaborate on your project. During the Fellowship, each week’s class has associated readings and may have short homework assignments as you select and work on your project. Before the closing session, you and your staff will prepare a presentation about your project. At the closing session, you will participate in the roundtable discussion and receive recommendations for moving your project forward.

While participation is extremely limited, MICD is always looking for new design leaders to fit various programs throughout the year, including the MICD Just City Mayoral Fellowship. Ideal candidates have a deep commitment to using the allied design fields to promote justice in the built environment, through architecture, arts & culture, city planning, community engagement, economic development, housing, landscape architecture, real estate development, transportation, and/or urban design. Design leaders may be invited to serve as a lecturer during the weekly classes and/or as a Resource Team member providing project recommendations at the closing session. Learn more about getting involved in MICD as a design leader.