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Friends of MICD,

We’re soon launching additional new programming this fall — be on the lookout for that. And we’ve been thrilled with the interest in our new Mayors' Virtual Seminars so far, which have reached mayors and staff from 55 cities over the first five sessions. We'll be continuing to offer these throughout 2020, giving mayors the opportunity to learn from experts in a candid, small-group setting. Thanks for helping us to make this transition into a digital learning environment a success.

In our next seminar, Helping Main Streets and Small Businesses Survive the Pandemic, Monday 9/21 at 12:00pm ET, Kennedy Smith will examine ways to adapt your commercial districts to the new normal. Mayors, you're invited to join this interactive discussion, and we encourage you to invite your staff to listen in. Register below.

You can also watch last week's presentation on transforming suburban-style properties, with Ellen Dunham-Jones, below. While the conversation among mayors was off-the-record, we're glad to share Ellen's look at five transformational projects and the partnerships behind them, below.

And some fun additional reading: The New Yorker featured an article yesterday about the future of monuments in America, with the work of Paul Farber and Bryan Lee, Jr. — the speakers from our first Mayors' Virtual Seminar — featured prominently.

Trinity Simons
Executive Director
Mayors' Institute on City Design

REGISTER NOW

Mayors' Virtual Seminar: Helping Main Streets and Small Businesses Survive the Pandemic

Monday, September 21 | 12:00-1:00pm ET

Kennedy Smith | Principal, Community Land Use + Economics Group; Senior Researcher, Institute for Local Self-Reliance

In this seminar, commercial district expert Kennedy Smith will share actionable lessons for mayors based on her recent publication, Safeguarding Small Business During The Pandemic: 26 Strategies For Local Leaders. As small businesses and main streets face the existential threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, mayors have made rapid-fire policy decisions to help them survive the immediate future. This seminar offers a chance to step back and focus on medium-term solutions (helping small businesses and main streets adapt and pivot) and long-term solutions (fixing systemic problems that the pandemic has laid bare).

Participating mayors will take away actionable ideas to help small businesses adapt and receive expert advice on the challenges facing each of their cities during the small-group discussion.

Mayors: Register Now

WATCH

Design Solutions for Retrofitting Suburban-Style Retail and Housing

In this seminar, Ellen Dunham-Jones, co-author of Retrofitting Suburbia and host of the REDESIGNING CITIES podcast, presented five case studies in which city leaders have formed key partnerships to transform suburban-style properties into more equitable, more resilient, and more economically vibrant neighborhoods.

Ellen shared replicable strategies for: reinhabiting and regreening shopping malls and strip retail centers; leveraging public land; designing parking lots as future building sites; using real estate transaction fees to underwrite affordable housing; and simultaneously improving schools, housing, and poverty.

Watch Presentation

WATCH

More Past Presentations

Streets for Pandemic Response & Recovery

In this seminar, Zabe Bent, Dr. Destiny Thomas, and Ariel Ward explored the various ways city transportation agencies have managed dramatic shifts in mobility in recent months. In their powerful presentations, they encouraged mayors to think deeply about who rapid-response projects benefit and to design for the safety and quality of life for those who need it most.

Parks Are Your New Asset

As COVID-19 has crippled our cities, parks have become the new assets of the public realm. In this seminar, renowned landscape architect Ernest Wong helped mayors explore a variety of park design solutions to encourage social distancing and healthy travel, as well as policy ideas to promote park maintenance while driving solutions for other social equity issues.

Safe Places, Active Spaces: A Design-Based Approach to Community Safety

This powerful seminar introduced mayors to the BlackSpace Manifesto, a guide for a design process that centers community safety and empowerment in historically marginalized communities. Architect and planner Ifeoma Ebo shared examples of successful projects that reimagined the space around public housing, parks, streetscapes and more through community-powered design.

Monuments: Reckoning with the Past, Envisioning the Future

As cities grapple with critical conversations about monuments and public space, mayors can lead by creating spaces for communities to heal and move towards a more equitable future. In this seminar, Bryan Lee, Jr. and Paul Farber discussed strategies for representing unheard stories and oﬀered ways in which mayors can mediate diﬃcult conversations to encourage healing and unity.

The Mayors’ Institute on City Design is a leadership initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Since 1986, the Mayors’ Institute has helped transform communities through design by preparing mayors to be the chief urban designers of their cities.

Copyright © 2020 Mayors' Institute on City Design, All rights reserved.

Mayors' Institute on City Design
1620 Eye Street NW, 4th Floor
Washington, DC 20006

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Mayors' Institute on City Design · 1620 I St NW Fl 4 · Washington, DC 20006-4005 · USA