Building the 21st Century City

On this, my first day as the Director of the Metropolitan Design Center (MDC), I thought I’d start with what I see as the Center’s tagline: Building the 21st Century City. That may seem obvious, since the Center focuses on city building and the 21st Century began 15 years ago, but too many cities – including many in the Twin Cities metro area – continue to build based on the rules and assumptions of the last century. Too many municipalities continue to assume that they will thrive with the low-density development, over-extended infrastructure, and single-use zoning that has characterized city building since World War II. In fact, that pattern of development far exceeds our ability to maintain it economically, as well as socially and environmentally. The MDC has the goal of helping cities rethink the assumptions and rewrite the rules guiding development so that we create metropolitan areas that we can afford economically, sustain environmentally, and justify ethically to future generations.
Tom Fisher