Urban ‘Greenprint’ Essential for City of Tomorrow

(Model D) — Mitchell Silver’s name might not ring a bell to the average person, but in the world of urban planning he’s quite the rock star. He’s the director of the planning department in Raleigh, North Carolina, and  president-elect of the American Planning Association. In his 25 years in the business, he’s been involved in in numerous notable projects, including a re-envisioning of Harlem’s riverfront and Jamaica Center in New York City as well as the revitalization of neighborhoods in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.   Silver was recently in Detroit for the Michigan Association of Planning conference that was held at the Renaissance Center October 20 to 23, and Model D had the chance to sit down with him at Starbucks for a little chat. We discussed the role of urban design in achieving social equity, national policies that can help aging industrial cities like Detroit, zoning and building codes, urban agriculture and the Detroit Works initiative among other topics.

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