“In the absence of any larger vision or mandate, city engineers—worshiping twin gods of Smooth Traffic and Ample Parking—have turned our downtowns into places that are easy to get to but not worth arriving at.”
Jeff Speck, Walkable City (2013 best-selling planning/design book)
City planner and urban designer Jeff Speck is a leading expert on how communities around the country can become more livable, walkable and economically viable.
Please join us for a conversation and book signing on Thursday, Sept. 4th at Charlottesville Tomorrow's 2014 Community Conversation
- Join us beginning at 5:00 p.m. for refreshments and appetizers
- Jeff Speck's talk will begin promptly at 5:45 p.m. and be followed by Q&A with the audience and a book signing
- Questions? Contact Brian Wheeler @ 434.260.1533 or [email protected]
Thanks to our community partners for their support of this event!
- Charlottesville Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau
- Train & Partners Architects
- University of Virginia Department of Urban and Environmental Planning
- UVa Center for Design and Health
- We have more sponsorship opportunities available! Contact Brian Wheeler
MORE INFO
Charlottesville & Albemarle have significant goals related to the creation of walkable neighborhoods.
- Charlottesville has adopted a "complete streets" policy that aims to ensure that new and redeveloped roadways better accommodate pedestrian, cyclists and street trees.
- Albemarle County’s “neighborhood model” design standards call for similar amenities that create walkable communities with attention to human scale.
Our community has been applauded for our pedestrian Downtown Mall. However maintaining the success of that project and creating additional vibrant corridors in both our city and county is a complex challenge.
A more walkable city involves significant decisions by the public, private property owners, developers, engineers, employers, and local government. Speck challenges the conventional thinking of every one of these groups.
His book Walkable City, gives us a lot to think about with respect to the West Main Street revitalization effort, the Strategic Investment Area (around the Ix property), the future of the U.S. 29 corridor, Downtown Crozet and other major development projects in Charlottesville-Albemarle.
As a continuation of our placemaking efforts, Charlottesville Tomorrow has invited Mr. Speck to be our speaker at our September 4, 2014 community conversation. We hope you’ll join us at the Jefferson Center African-American Heritage Center. Be prepared to think differently about walkable cities!
LEARN MORE ABOUT JEFF SPECK
View the TED Talk
Jeff Speck is a city planner and urban designer who, through writing, lectures, and built work, advocates internationally for smart growth and sustainable design. As Director of Design at the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003 through 2007, he oversaw the Mayors' Institute on City Design and created the Governors' Institute on Community Design, a federal program that helps state governors fight suburban sprawl. Prior to joining the Endowment, Mr. Speck spent ten years as Director of Town Planning at Duany Plater-Zyberk and Co., a leading practitioner of the New Urbanism, where he led or managed more than forty of the firm's projects. He is the co-author of Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream as well as The Smart Growth Manual. He serves as a Contributing Editor to Metropolis Magazine, and on the Sustainability Task Force of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. His recent book, Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time –which the Christian Science Monitor called “timely and important, a delightful, insightful, irreverent work” – was the best-selling planning/design title of 2013.