Good Friday afternoon, everyone:

Our long-standing friend and colleague Omar Blaik (the founder of U3 Advisors) has been an inspiration and adviser to Kresge for nearly twenty years. It was Omar who helped conceptualize and operationalize the Live, Work, Buy strategy among the Henry Ford Hospital System, the Detroit Medical Center, and Wayne State. It was Omar who first showed me a fold-out conceptual proposal for the Collaboratorium, to be located above Midtown, Inc. on Woodward and Alexandrine (i.e., what would become our Midtown office). It was Omar who helped us work through the opportunities Marygrove presented for our headquarters relocation – and who continues to guide us there. It was Omar who worked with Bill to migrate the idea of an anchor institution to South African universities (University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, the University of Pretoria, and the University of the Western Cape).  And so much more.

And before forming U3, Omar worked hand-in-glove with John Fry to create the community redevelopment strategy of the University of Pennsylvania under Judy Rodin (Omar later worked with John at Drexel to do the same).

So, it was exciting and inspiring to learn that on Wednesday night, Omar was awarded the Edward N. Bacon Award for excellence in urban planning and design by the American Institute of Architects Philadelphia chapter and DesignPhiladelphia.

Bacon was a legendary planner. After a stint at Cranbrook in the 1930’s, Bacon went on to an illustrious career grounded in Philadelphia. He served as the head of the Philadelphia Planning Commission from 1949-1970 and oversaw such iconic projects as Penn Center (replacing the old Broad Street Station), the revitalization of the Society Hill neighborhood, and the Market East corridor.

As you might expect, Omar’s acceptance speech was a tour de force, a brilliant making-of-the-case for thoughtful, visionary, and human-centered urban planning. He titled it “In Search of Community.” I wanted to share a segment of his remarks:

The stakes in America today are very high, the risk to our institutions is real, our divisions are serious. I am here today to suggest that it is imperative for us to build a different kind of an American city. I submit that there is no endeavor more critical to save our democracy and to live up to the promise of our founding fathers than this. I believe in doing so is the salvation of our country itself.

So here lies the challenge of how to build cities that allow us to get to know one another. Cities that bring us together, that help us to shed our stereotypes, that teach us empathy and kindness and that advance our humanity.

Cities are where our collective narrative is written, where culture is created not procured, where discoveries are made, ideas are advanced, and above all it is where we understand that our humanity transcends race, nationality, skin color, income and education. Cities are nothing less than the bedrock of our very humanity.

Yet these are not the cities we have been planning, designing, and building. To build a different city will require a great deal of courage from each of you.

We largely live in isolation in our own bubbles as we have been stratified by income, race, age and interests. You can live your whole life engaging only with people who look like you, share your values, and enjoy the same economic status and interests.

What a sorry state of living where we design our built environment not to discover the different but reinforce the familiar, not to explore the delight of surprise but dwell in the dullness of familiarity, not to demand what is beautiful but be content with the mundane.

In this isolation it is easy to see how we as a society have grown apart. We see our problems always caused by “the other”. It is the immigrants, the poor, the sick, and the list can go on and on. It is always the other. Our country is being threatened in a profoundly existential way by fractures deep and wide. We withdrew from the public realm and retreated to our gated communities. We have privatized education, we have privatized health care, we have privatized incarceration, we have privatized transit and many other aspects of our lives.

In fact, we have privatized joy.

This is why design matters; it is a fundamentally creative act that unleashes more and more creativity. . .  Can we build cities that foster creativity through meaningful interaction among its citizens, a city where kindness, innovation, ideation, and intellectual curiosity are the organic products of its streets, sidewalks, parks, public spaces, coffee shops and libraries? I submit to you that you can and that you must.

As I have traveled and worked over the last several decades, I have picked up a few lessons about what it means to build differently. Here are few that you, our future city builders, can benefit from:

 Bend the arc of capital towards the public good. In Detroit facing the trifecta of city bankruptcy, auto industry collapse, and a global economic meltdown, we had to create a market not leverage it.

 Listen to people. [From my work at Penn, I learned] how every small decision I may take will undoubtedly have an immense impact on people’s lives. Listen to people when you design.

 Do not settle for the obvious. Complexity is in pursuit of simplicity.

 Lead with vulnerability.. Leadership as we were taught means tough, laser focused, and ruthless, but in city building, vulnerability is your friend.

Ed Bacon challenged us to think bigger – to him, ambition itself was a key ingredient of excellence. But thinking big does not mean to build big. Great cities are made of many wonderful small experiences, not one massive intervention. We should stay mindful of the ways that small acts of intention and moments of real joy are the bricks that make the biggest plans possible.

We are called to build.

Let us build cities for people not cars, for children not gamblers, for residents not tourists, for health and wellness not for Data Centers and meaningless consumerism.

Let us build downtowns for all people, rich and poor, working class and white collar, for families and empty nesters, not for a single use or a slice of demography

Let us build public spaces that redefine a collective sense of ownership, places that promote equity and democracy, places that nurture a collective narrative about who we are.

A powerful roadmap for all of us who care about cities. Thank you, Omar, and congratulations!

Rip

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