The Mayors’ Institute on City Design is a program that conducts a series of small, closed-door three-day symposia intended to offer a small group of invited mayors a better understanding of the design of American cities. Participation is limited to eighteen to twenty people: half are mayors and half are urban design professionals and other resource experts. The format encourages a high degree of participation and interchange. Each mayor presents a design problem from his or her city, which is analyzed by the mayors and the design professionals who, working together, discuss how an appropriate design process can help solve the problem. The interchange between mayors and the resource team sparks lively debate, opens new perspectives, and leads to creative solutions.

The resource team also makes presentations on pertinent aspects of urban design. These provide the mayors with important background on planning, urban design, landscape design, and the role of developers. The mayors and designers discuss common and specific problems facing cities today and explore how the public and private sectors can work together to improve the conditions of our cities. Particular emphasis is placed on how the design process works, and on the importance of the mayor as city designer.

The mayors represent a wide range of cities, towns and villages and bring a wide variety of design issues to the table. The resource team includes architects, planners, public policy specialists, developers, preservationists, sociologists, lawyers, and historians. They are all practicing professionals and distinguished academics.

The Mayors’ Institute on City Design is a program sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Arts, the United States Conference of Mayors, and the American Architectural Foundation. This document is the meeting summary of the Northeast Mayors’ Institute on City Design, which was hosted by the New Jersey School of Architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Regional Plan Association on November 7-9, 2007. This summary draws on the background materials prepared for the Institute’s Briefing Book as well as on the actual presentations made during the Institute.