Speaker: Cities ‘can only move at the speed of trust’

City leaders can only effect change at the pace the community is willing to follow. It helps if residents can see short-term successes. It also helps if cities commit to preserving neighborhoods, which are often the soul of a city.

Those were two points that Maurice Cox, former commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development and former mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia, made during a “The Future American City Now” event held May 1 at the Clinton Presidential Center . by Cox and other urban planners on issues related to community development, equity and environmental sustainability.

Cox was answering a question from Little Rock City Director Dean Kumpuris, who noted that six of the city’s 10 directors — a majority — were present. Kumpuris said the city is completing a nine-month downtown planning process and must implement what it has discovered. He asked how to rally and educate the community to get buy-in.

In response, Cox said, “I would just say that you can only move at the speed of confidence.”

He said the planning process has built some trust, and the city needs to build on that trust. While achieving change is a long-term endeavor, in the short term cities must show progress in implementing what they said they would do. He said one of the projects in his city, involving only paint and artificial grass, was completed within three months. The quick turnaround gave community members confidence that the planning was paying off.

“One of the things we learned – I think it was a lesson from Covid – is that we have to act quickly. We have to show what is possible, and then we get many more people to join us for the medium and long term,” he said.

Earlier in the panel discussion, Cox said the future of American cities must be equitable. He was referring to city planners’ destruction of Little Rock’s 9th Street neighborhood when I-630 was built right in the middle of it.

“I would like to say that the soul of every city lives in its neighborhoods, and when you lose your neighborhoods, you lose your soul,” he said.

He said cities need to build neighborhoods, plazas, parks and greenways. In one area of ​​Detroit, a sidewalk was expanded from 8 feet to 24 feet. It became the city’s second most visited commercial corridor. Another project in Detroit created a 27-mile Greenway loop that connected 27 previously disconnected neighborhoods.

Another speaker was Gia Biagi, director of urban planning & social impact at the architecture and urban planning practice Studio Gang. The former head of the Chicago Department of Transportation said cities must create an architecture of engagement to have an ongoing conversation about improvements.

Biagi said the future of the American city requires adaptive thinking. A city is not a puzzle like a Rubik’s cube, so each city’s problems cannot all be solved the same way. Adaptive thinking is needed for ‘adaptive challenges’ such as climate, poverty, homelessness and violence. Adaptive challenges cannot be solved by following the rules and technical thinking. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she said, streets became restaurants, health clinics, galleries and churches.

Trinity Wagner, executive director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, said a future American city is “joy for all.” A cheerful city is playful, restorative, has beauty and wonder, and is inclusive. She said cities are often built around the movement of cars, but they are at odds with being joyful places for people. City leaders and designers must listen to residents through community engagement. They need to translate a vision into action, then put the plan into action and communicate what they’ve done — a job the government isn’t doing well, she said.

She said plans need someone to work to make them happen. The city of Boston has created a Planning Advisory Council, a small office that can convene department heads to coordinate and help prioritize capital investments across departments. The office helps the city avoid silos and move things forward when they are stuck. The office also tells the city’s story back to the community.

Wagner said that at a time of polarization, it is critical to individual well-being and the well-being of American democracy that citizens trust the government to keep its word.

“We joke in the mayoral world that there is no Democratic or Republican way to close a gap,” she said. “To run for local office, you must fundamentally believe that government can be a tool to improve people’s lives.”

Asked by moderator Peter MacKeith, dean and professor at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, about the perennial challenge of urban planning, Cox said it focuses the power of design on things people care about. People care about schools and neighborhoods, but don’t necessarily see how design affects those things. City leaders need to help them do that.

“It’s a constant challenge to show people how design can be a tool to achieve the goals they have for their community,” he said.

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