Cities for people.

Cities for people is not a tagline or a buzzword. It is necessary for our work, and our highest ideal. We believe that cities built for people — cities and places that take into account the diversity, needs, and fundamental nature of humanity — are successful cities. And we believe that successful cities are critical to human development.

But in most American cities, something has gone deeply wrong. Somewhere along the way, we stopped building cities for people and instead built cities for cars, for capital, for cultural and social isolation. As American society and our economy developed, professions became specialized and our cities were built in silos. Traffic engineers designed the streets. Planners drew up the codes and zones. Architects designed the structures and public spaces. Developers built the buildings. While this specialization has benefits, it has also resulted in a fragmented public realm. 

The places where we live, work, and play have become commodities, detached from their essential value.

Houses go here. Offices over there. Parks here, shopping centers there, and car-centric streets to connect them all.

Lost in this mechanization of the city is the organic, spontaneous nature of the human experience. 

We saw a need to reconnect our cities, to bring back the organized chaos that makes for great urbanism. We saw a need to combine the traditional roles of real estate developer with the burgeoning people-first placemaking movement. We saw a need to work closely with planners and architects and city leaders to create streets and public spaces that support and elevate public life, while taking a decision-making role on how the private property and buildings around them interact with those public spaces. We saw a need to harness social and economic capital to create great places and great cities. 

Places for people. Cities for people.