Maurice Cox [upcoming lecture]
Mon Nov-9th @ 6:30pm (online):
Designing Equity: MAURICE COX_
Maurice Cox, a nationally respected community designer and leader of the public interest design movement, is the Commissioner of the Department of Planning and Development for the city of Chicago. Prior to moving to Illinois, he was director of planning and development for the City of Detroit, where he created a resident-centered planning and development department and led urban planning and revitalization strategies that championed the equitable redevelopment of neighborhoods that fostered population growth and new mixed-use, mixed-income investment. Earlier in his career, he was director of Tulane City Center and associate dean for Community Engagement at the Tulane University School of Architecture in New Orleans.
An alumnus of The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union, and previously held a faculty position at the University of Virginia, Cox is a co-founder of the national SEED (Social, Economic, Environmental, Design) Network. He has served as design director of the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, DC from 2007-2010. In that capacity, he led the Mayor’s Institute on City Design, the Governor’s Institute on Community Design, and oversaw the award of more than $2 million a year in NEA design grants across the United States. Cox has also taught at Syracuse University, the University of Virginia, Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and spent a decade teaching and practicing in Italy.
Cox served as city council member and then mayor of the City of Charlottesville from 1996-2004. During his mayoral term the city was ranked as the “#1 Best Place to Live in the USA & Canada” by Frommer’s Cities Ranked and Rated and was also the smallest city in America to maintain a AAA-bond rating for excellence in fiscal management. Under Cox’s leadership, Charlottesville completed several large projects, including the passage of an award-winning zoning ordinance in support of mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented development; new infill residential neighborhoods and mixed-income, higher-density housing; and the design of a two-mile, federally funded parkway entrance into the city.
Cox has received national acclaim for his ability to incorporate active citizen participation into the design process while achieving the highest quality of design excellence, leading Fast Company magazine to name him one of America’s “20 Masters of Design” for his practice of “democratic design.”
Sources: http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/#/people/maurice-cox.html
https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dcd/auto_generated/dcd_leadership.htm