Ten City Design Commandments

[Subdude]

Jeff Speck offers advice -- in the form ten City Design Resolutions -- for city mayors who want to build better places.

By Jeff Speck

Jan 10, 2005

America's cities are changing every day. Some are becoming better places to live, some worse. Cities improve or worsen as a result of many intersecting forces, but if any one person has the ability to lead this change -- or at least exert an influence -- it is the American mayor.

One of the best unheralded programs of the National Endowment for the Arts is the Mayors' Institute on City Design. For almost twenty years, this group has been putting mayors together with designers to rethink the shape of their cities. After eighteen months working with this program, a number of design truisms that I once understood mostly in theory have become painfully obvious in practice. That many of these items are common sense does not alter the fact that mayors every day make decisions large and small that violate them outright. So, for all the mayors today who want to make better places, and for the citizens who want to help, I offer the following ten City Design Resolutions for the New Year. Those who wish to call them commandments are welcome to do so.

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