Celebrating 25 Years of City Design
On April 27 - 29 in Chicago, more than 50 Mayors along with design and development experts will convene at the Chicago Hilton for a National Summit on City Design to identify challenges, opportunities and funding sources for cities that work well. Participants will examine the power of arts and design to transform cities while celebrating the Mayors Institute of City Design (MICD) – a collaboration of the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), The U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM), and the American Architectural Foundation (AAF) – and honoring the design legacy of former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.
For 25 years, MICD has been the only organization that provides mayors an opportunity to learn how smart design can help to holistically solve problems in communities to create livable cities. Smart design is, fundamentally, a language of problem solving and through MICD, mayors learn to use smart design to identify ways to creatively reduce costs through innovation in areas such as public transit, downtown development infrastructure and sustainability.
During the two-day summit, mayors and design professionals will come together to discuss the successes and lessons from MICD, as well as the topics key to the future of American cities. The highlight of the session will be on its final day, April 29, where more than 40 mayors and 80 design professionals and scholars will honor Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley as he receives the Joseph P. Riley Award for Leadership in Urban Design. As Chicago's longest serving mayor, Daley is described by USCM's CEO and Executive Director Tom Cochran as a "Mayor's Mayor."