The Citistates Group

Katz played a key role in shaping the movement as founding executive director of the Congress for the New Urbanism. He’s also author of a seminal book on the subject — The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community — published by McGraw-Hill in 1994. Katz continues to advocate for better communities in his role as founding President of the Form-Based Codes Institute, a national alliance advancing an emerging alternative to use-based zoning. Form-Based Codes are proving to be highly successful in the implementation of New Urbanism and Smart Growth development approaches.

Katz is a Professor-in-Practice at Virginia Polytechnic Institute’s Department of Urban Affairs and Planning (Alexandria Center). He also provides consulting services in the areas of real-estate marketing and community development. Over the years, Katz has worked with a range of clients including municipal governments and agencies, real-estate developers, non-profit organizations, charitable foundations and civic associations. Included among these are Community Builders (Louisville and Cincinnati), the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Brookings Institution, the City of Oceanside (California) and Contra Costa County (California). His reach extends internationally, too — with speeches and consulting stints in Australia, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan. For the past decade Katz has been a survey participant in Emerging Trends in Real Estate, a highly respected industry forecast co-produced by Pricewaterhouse Coopers and the Urban Land Institute.

Before his involvement with New Urbanism, Katz was a principal of Stratagem Consultants, a San Francisco based real-estate marketing consultancy, where he directed projects for such clients as the Port of Oakland, the InterPacific Group and Embarcadero Center. Before his move to San Francisco in 1986, Katz was founding partner of Whitehouse & Katz, a New York-based marketing and design firm, where his clients included Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business, IBM Corporation, The Prudential Realty Group and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Katz received his degree from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York where he studied architecture and graphic design.

Regarding Peter Katz concepts of the interconnected “intelligent community” for our times, click here. For for Katz’s personal professional profile, check this interview from Professional Builder.

Speech Topics

• New Urbanism: Why “Place” Matters — Most everyone agrees that sprawl threatens our metropolitan regions, but what is the alternative? One of the most hopeful development techniques for both infill and new growth areas is New Urbanism. What are the principles of this innovative planning approach? How does it differ from conventional suburban development? How does one incorporate transportation elements into New Urbanist neighborhoods? Retail? Affordable housing? How does New Urbanism relate to existing municipal zoning? Citizen participation? What are the best examples of New Urbanism around the country and elsewhere in the world? Why does place matter even more in our increasingly global, information-based world?
• New Urbanism: Making it Work in the Marketplace — Widely recognized for its social and environmental benefits, New Urbanism is not yet widely accepted as a development strategy. Where are the successes of the New Urbanism, and how have those successes been achieved? What’s the best way to market this approach and to whom? How can negative attitudes toward density and mixed-used be turned around, and even leveraged for greater competitive advantage? How can we apply the lessons of “classic” real-estate developments of the past to today’s market?
• Critical Choices for Vital Regions — The social, economic and political viability of our communities is increasingly tied to the larger regional context, yet there are great obstacles to planning at the regional level. What lessons can New Urbanism provide for the region as a whole? How can citizen participation in planning at the neighborhood level contribute to the making of a more dynamic region? Where are the regional planning success stories, and how can they be replicated elsewhere?
• Mobility and the Modern Metropolis: Public Transit in an Era of Diminishing Resources — Transportation has always had a huge impact on the form of America’s communities. As we move beyond the automobile era, how will public transit shape cities and towns of tomorrow? Will the design of new transportation systems reinforce the positive aspects of our communities or will it degrade them? What are the critical details that make the difference?
• New Technologies for Citizen-Based Planning — Must the planning process be dull, complex and accessible only to insiders? No. Today’s technologies are making it possible for citizens to be involved in ways that are meaningful and even fun. New computer programs use interactive presentation techniques that are much more informative and compelling than the plans, renderings and dry lists of numbers that planners currently use. Some tools literally put citizens in the picture, enabling them to walk through redesigned communities, visualizing alternatives on the fly. Others generate economic data as designs are changed, so that feasibility can be quickly assessed for a range of alternative plans. This highly visual, information-rich talk uses computer graphics to showcase the tools and techniques. Such approaches will be essential for citizen participation is to move beyond mere “input” to true democratic development within our communities.
• Beyond Zoning: New Approaches to Development Regulation — Forward-thinking local governments are increasingly looking to New Urbanism and Smart Growth development strategies to accommodate future growth. Yet in many of those same communities, existing zoning ordinances work against the implementation of such approaches. Why is zoning, long the mainstay of American planning, coming to be seen as an impediment to true mixed-use development? Why are developers, who are typically concerned with flexibility above all else, starting to embrace highly prescriptive New Urban codes? How do such codes address issues such as housing affordability? Increased automobile dependence? Property rights? And why are issues of architectural style the least important element in some New Urbanist codes?
• Attaining the Intelligent Community — With all the recent focus on wired towns, cities and regions, some are wondering whether the concept of a virtual community will ultimately supplant the “real places” where we live, work, shop and play. Despite such concerns, there is much evidence that physical place is still what matters most in the information economy. Recent findings show that the most desired communities are those that offer a high quality of life with strong local institutions providing quality health care, life-long education and cultural enrichment. In many such places, ordinary citizens are more involved in decisions about growth, development and municipal affairs. Physical design approaches such as New Urbanism and Smart Growth, while important, are just one component in this holistic and integrated approach to creating the intelligent community of the future.
• Smart Growth and New Urbanism: Moving from Theory to Practice – As these compact, pedestrian-friendly development models achieve increasing popularity among citizens, local government and some developers, those same individuals and groups are discovering considerable barriers to implementing such approaches. What are the “three pillars” that are essential to achieving success with Smart Growth and New Urban development strategies? How should the community deal with highly charged NIMBY debates about traffic congestion, parking and views? What is the importance of community visioning? the charrette process? zoning ordinances versus form-based codes? public education about planning issues? demonstration projects? While there has much discussion about the pros and cons of New Urbanism and Smart Growth, there has been little information about the critical “next steps” for communities that want to grow in better ways. This presentation fills that void with colorful visual examples, clear how-to lists, and resources for further exploration.

Recent Speeches

Last updated March 15, 2008