The closing workshop of the 2024 MICD Just City Mayoral Fellowship took place April 17-19, 2024 in Cambridge, MA, hosted by the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). The closing workshop concluded the 2024 Fellowship with three days of collaboration and inspiration, where the seven mayoral fellows were joined by key members of their staff as well as seven experts in architecture, landscape architecture, arts and culture, transportation, urban planning, and real estate development.
In partnership with the GSD’s Just City Lab and led by course curator Toni L. Griffin, this fellowship empowered mayors to tackle injustice across the social, economic, and physical infrastructures of their cities with clarity, courage, and resolve. Over the semester-long program, the fellowship introduced mayors and their staff to the concepts of social impact and justice-centered design, equity framework measurement tools, and innovative design practices that increase just and equitable outcomes. The Lab’s Just City Index framed dynamic presentations and dialogues with experts in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, art activism, housing, and public policy. Mayors identified how injustices manifest in the social, economic, and physical infrastructures of their cities and developed manifestos of action for their communities.
At the closing workshop, robust discussions provided each mayor with concrete ideas for their projects and manifestos as well as a new understanding of design as a tool for infusing justice into city halls. In a public panel at the conclusion of the workshop, Mayors Imagining the Just City: Volume 4, recorded April 19, 2024, mayors and GSD students explored the ways cities can embed equity and justice goals in government processes and practices.
Mayors
Matthew Tuerk | Allentown, PA
Abdullah H. Hammoud | Dearborn, MI
Sharetta Smith | Lima, OHÂ
Rex Richardson | Long Beach, CA
Remy Drabkin | McMinnville, OR
Cory Mason | Racine, WI
Kate Colin | San Rafael, CA
City Staff
Lucinda Wright | Deputy Director, Parks and Recreation, Allentown, PA
Mark Hartney | Deputy Director, Community and Economic Development, Allentown, PA
Jordan Twardy | Director of Economic Development, Dearborn, MI
Kaileigh Bianchini | Senior Planner, Dearborn, MI
Shane Coleman | Chief of Staff, Lima, OH
Parker Houston | Policy Deputy, Long Beach, CA
Jeff Towery | City Manager, McMinnville, OR
Heather Richards | Community Development Director, McMinnville, OR
Walter Williams | Development Director, Racine, WI
Sean Mooney | Director of Digital Service and Open Government, San Rafael, CA
Cristine Alilovich | City Manager, San Rafael, CA
Resource Team
Rodrigo Abela | GGN, Washington, DC
Karen Abrams | Chisholm Legacy Project, Pittsburgh, PA
Elizabeth Christoforetti | Supernormal, Cambridge, MA
Gerardo Garcia | The Urbanism Bureau, Chicago, IL
Robert Lane | Plan & Process LLP, New York, NY
Ben Margolis | James Lima Planning + Development, New York, NY
Katie Swenson | MASS Design Group, New York, NY
Learn More
About the MICD Just City Mayoral Fellowship
Watch Public Panel, “Mayors Imagining the Just City: Volume 4”
Hosts
The Mayors’ Institute on City Design (MICD), the nation’s preeminent forum for mayors to address city design and development issues, is a leadership initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the United States Conference of Mayors. Since 1986, MICD has helped transform communities through design by preparing mayors to be the chief urban designers of their cities.
The Just City Lab is a design lab located within the Harvard Graduate School of Design led by architect and urban planner Toni L. Griffin. The Lab has developed nearly 10 years of publications, case studies, convening tools and exhibitions that examine how design and planning can have a positive impact of addressing the long-standing conditions of social and spatial injustice in cities.
Event Photos
