Urban Thinkers Campus: Global Trends in Place Management (Closing Event)

This is the closing virtual event of Georgetown University’s Urban Thinkers Campus (UTC) conducted under the auspices of the UN Habitat’s World Urban Campaign.  The theme of this extended, virtual, multi-panel global forum has been “International Practices of Place Management Through Multisectoral Partnerships.”

This session will feature key thought leaders and practitioners from the regional workshops conducted this fall and will culminate in an open dialogue and town hall.  We invite thought leaders and place management practitioners from all cities and regions of the world to participate in this dialogue.

Greg Clark is a British & Irish writer, Board Chair, Non Exec Director, and advisor on cities, mobility, built environment, and urban innovation. He is author of 10 books and 100 reports on cities, mobility, real estate, climate, urban economies, investment, and place-leadership, and has worked with 400 cities around the world. In the UK, he is Chair of the Connected Places Catapult (CPC), the UK’s national innovation accelerator for transport, cities, and place-leadership, and Chair of the Cities Commission for Climate Investment(3Ci) which convenes local leaders and investors to find innovative means to capitalise a just urban transition. He is a Board Member of Transport for London (TfL). He chairs TfL’s Land and Property Committee which oversees TfL’s property company: Places for London. He is a Senior Advisor to New London Architecture, and Hon Prof of cities and innovation at Strathclyde University. He was previously Lead Advisor, Cities & Regions, Office of Deputy Prime Minister (2004- 2010), Executive Director, London Development Agency, Chief Executive of the London Enterprise Agency, and he teaches regularly at LSE, Cambridge University, and University College London. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS).

Christopher B. Leinberger is a land use strategist, teacher, developer, researcher and author, balancing business realities with social and environmental concerns. He is a professor emeritus and former chair of the Center for Real Estate and Urban Analysis at the George Washington University School of Business.

He is also the president of Locus: Responsible Real Estate Developers and Investors, a political advocacy organization working on the national and state levels. He is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program in Washington, D.C. Finally, he is a founding partner of Arcadia Land Company, a new urbanism and transit-oriented development firm based in Philadelphia.

For twenty years, Professor Leinberger was the managing director and owner of Robert Charles Lesser & Co., a leading international market, financial feasibility and strategic planning firm for the real estate industry.

His most recent book is the Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream. He is the author of Strategic Planning for Real Estate Companies and has contributed chapters to 12 other books. He is an op-ed contributor to the New York Times, writes regularly for the Atlantic Monthly and numerous other magazines. CNN, National Public Radio, the Atlantic Cities Channel and the Washington Post, among others, have profiled him.

Leinberger was voted one of the “Top 100 Urban Thinkers” in a 2009 poll conducted by Planetizen, the international urban planning website. He was the 2010 William H. Whyte Urbanism Award winner by Partners for Livable Communities.

Isabella Rossen is a sociologist specializing in urban development and heritage activation. She completed a MA in Contemporary Social Thought at the London School of Economics in London and Political Science and a Research Masters in Urban Studies at the University of Amsterdam, for which she conducted research in both Amsterdam and Hong Kong.  

She has written multiple articles on the interaction between architecture, urban development and societal issues for online magazines Urban Transcripts, Failed Architecture and The Proto City. She worked for the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Hong Kong and Rotterdam from 2014 to 2020. Currently she is Heritage Programs Researcher at Qatar Museums, and co-founder of placemaking initiative Amaken. She is organizing an urban field lab bringing together artists, students and policymakers to research the market Souq al Haraj in Doha. 

Nokwanda Zakiyyah Shabangu is a multimedia strategist, content editor, coder and project manager. Her skill set encompasses a range of creative arts such as copywriting, desktop-publishing, photography, videography, singing and performance poetry while her technical abilities include client and project management, digital ads management, reporting and software development.

Nokwanda’s problem-solving competency and need for analysis using design-thinking enables her to tell more impactful narratives. Impact (specifically, positive impact for marginalised groups) is at the epicentre of Nokwanda’s works and collaborations. She has worked for the civil society sector since 2016 and fuses Indigenous Knowledge Systems with Western business practises.

As a young, Black, Queer, Woman who is a mother to two children, it’s safe to say that Nokwanda represents what the future looks like. She is the ear to the ground.

Steven is Professor of Place Management and Director of the Institute of Place Management at Manchester Metropolitan University. Steven guides the Institute's work on place making and planning. He is a Trustee of the Manchester Geographical Society. Steven has also conducted academic research on lighting and public space, place and creativity, and place-making and football. Steven is the placemaking programme lead for the High Streets Task Force.

Tim Tompkins has worked for over three decades to understand and improve cities, with an emphasis on neighborhood-driven economic development, place management, public art, and public-private partnerships.

In 2022 he created SharedCitySharedSpace, which nurtures the interaction of ideas, institutions, individuals and cultures — particularly through public, private and civic sector collaboration — in order to make more prosperous, vibrant and equitable cities.

He is currently an NYU Marron Institute Fellow and an Adjunct Professor of Urban Planning at the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University, where he has taught two courses: “Transforming Cities Equitably: Public Space, Partnerships, Politics & the Press” and “Arts, the Artist and Urban Transformation.”

Tompkins was President of the Times Square Alliance, one of the nation’s pre-eminent Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), from 2002-2020. The many public realm improvements during his tenure included the building of the iconic red steps on Duffy Square and the creation, in partnership with NYC, of the Broadway Pedestrian Malls. He oversaw the annual New Year's Eve celebration and created other initiatives such as the Summer Solstice Yoga celebration, Design in Times Square, the Times Square Design Lab and Broadway Buskers. He articulated a set of principles underlying Times Square’s dramatic changes, and put forth a strategic and brand vision for its future.

Ellen McCarthy serves on the faculty of the Urban & Regional Planning program and is principal at the Urban Partnership, LLC.

With over 35 years of professional experience focused on the practice of land use zoning, neighborhood planning, and historic preservation, McCarthy is widely recognized for her expertise in reconciling public and private value in urban revitalization. From 1999-2007, she served in the District of Columbia Office of Planning, first as deputy director for Land Use Review and subsequently as director. Under her leadership, the District of Columbia approved its first newly drafted Comprehensive Plan since the establishment of the congressionally appointed Control Board.

In 2009, Partners for Livable Communities bestowed its Entrepreneurial American Leadership Award to McCarthy and her husband, faculty member Richard Bradley, for their efforts to revitalize Downtown D.C.