Stimulate This: Preview of Panels on City Design

Some of you may have read the article in last Friday's Inquirer by Inga Saffron, the best/only reporter who covers planning and design issues in the mainstream media, about the Mayors' Institute on City Design. MICD is essentially an annual conference on city design only open to U.S. mayors in which design professionals teach top city officials about the value of planning and design in an informal and confidential setting. Mayors can rub elbows, trade secrets, and exchange valuable knowledge in a safe space where they don't have to worry about parsing their words.

As much as we'd love to be a fly on the wall in an info session like this, soaking up nerdy knowledge from all these chiefs, this Phillyist appreciates that the good folks at MICD are working hard to ensure mayors receive down and dirty immersion therapy in the ways of smart city practices. And Philly has a lot to be proud of, so we hope the looming city budget crisis doesn't take away from that either.

However, for us city nerds, there are two lectures over the course of this two-day Institute that are open to the public and offer folks a chance to ask the important questions about how we encourage urban transformation in this time of depleting environmental and financial resources, and how we can ensure the pending American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 gets put to good use. The public events are being sponsored by PennDesign, PennPraxis, the Penn Institute for Urban Research, the City of Philadelphia and the Academy of Natural Sciences.

One event is a panel discussion by designers on how federal policy can support cities, and the other is a lecture by the Mayor of Charleston (and founder of MICD) with discussion from other U.S. mayors on how to be a successful implementer. Here's all the info:

Wednesday, February 11, 6:30pm (5:30pm reception)
How can the federal government support cities?
RSVP: http://www.planphilly.com/node/7097
Location: 19th Street & Ben Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, Academy Auditorium

Panelists:
Larry Scarpa, architect and principal of Pugh/Scarpa of Los Angeles
Dan Pitera, urban designer and director of the Detroit Collaborative Design Center
Maurice Cox, former mayor of Charlottesville, VA and Director of Design at the National Endowment of the Arts
Alan Greenberger, Executive Director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission
Moderator: Susan Wachter, Professor of Real Estate, Wharton School

Thursday, February 12, 6:30pm (5:30pm reception)
Mayor Joseph Riley: Preservation and Redevelopment of the American City: The Charleston Experience
RSVP: http://www.planphilly.com/node/7099
Location: Houston Hall, Hall of Flags, Spruce Street between 34th and 36th

Mayor Riley will be introduced by Mayor Michael A. Nutter, and joined by other participating mayors from throughout the United States.

Image credit: Flickr user It's Our City