Postcard from MICD 46


by Rocco Landesman, Chairman
Washington, DC Last week I was very glad to get to be part of the Mayors? Institute on City Design (MICD) in New York City. It was my first time, and I want to be a regular attendee. Ron Bogle at the American Architectural Foundation and all the MICD staff do a really terrific job with this event. The six or seven mayors who attend work at close range with urban planners, architects, and experts in design. It really becomes a sort of working seminar rather than a standard kind of lecture event, and I think it?s very productive for the mayors. It?s great for these mayors to be able to come together and talk about mutual problems, talk about the issues in their cities and have a panel of experts sitting around the table who deal with these things every day. One of the highlights, I think, was a visit with NYC Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden to The High Line, a tremendous project around a New York City park space that?s been reclaimed from an old elevated train line. We?re getting a lot of traction for MICD 25 , which is open to cities that have already participated in a Mayor?s Institute. There?s a lot of visibility for it. I wish we had more money to give out; hopefully next year we will. But it?s already a very successful program, and I think we?re going to have some great awards to announce soon.