From Mayor Dave Cieslewicz
Next June Madison will host a prestigious conference of urban planners, architects, progressive developers and public officials called the Congress for New Urbanism. You can get a preview Thursday night by joining us for a free public lecture by CNU board member Doug Farr. Doug is the author of “Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature.” And he’ll be discussing local, sustainable urbanism and the promise of LEED for neighborhood development. When Doug was here a little over a year ago, over 200 people attended his presentation.
Hosting the CNU is a coup for Madison. It’s a conference that is usually held in much bigger cities like Chicago, Atlanta and Denver. For almost a week next year 1,500 of the world’s leading neighborhood designers will come to Madison. Most of them will be seeing our city for the first time. As mayor, I can’t help but want to show off our town.
But that’s not enough. We also need the conference to give back to the community by getting these international experts involved in interesting design challenges throughout the city and by giving Madisonians the chance to hear from them without having to pay all the usual conference fees. And what’s great about the CNU is that that’s exactly what they want to do in every city they visit.
So, stay tuned for more information on the congress and how you can get involved. And for now, consider attending Doug Farr’s public lecture and discussion at Monona Terrace starting at 6:00pm on Thursday.