ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

The CDC has documented that one in four people will experience some degree of disability that impacts their daily lives, in their lifetime.

The United Nations has identified far more than one billion people with disabilities on earth.

Universal Design supports aging in place.

This is crucial in America. 

In a few years, more people will be over 65 than under 18 in the first time in U.S. history.

No matter how much Botox we use or pickleball we play --- we lose mobility as we age.

Given the above numbers, no community should be pushing back on making more of the built environment accessible and doing so in low-maintenance, high-impact ways.

Complying with the ADA is not only about doing the right thing – it’s also about capturing a growth market.

More than 10,000 people retire each day in America.

Capturing their dollars for where they live, work and play – could be a huge boost for real estate developers rebounding from the loss of office and retail tenants due to work from home and e-commerce.

 

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

While Universal Design serves all ages well, it is a must for people with disabilities.

Sadly a lot of professionals who design and regulate the built environment – cling to some wrong-headed notion that disability is an outlier.

The snide part of me says that perhaps they have built so many barriers and paid so little attention to the ADA or Universal Design, that they’ve isolated people with disabilities from their cities and neighborhoods – and you don’t see those you deny access to.

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

Note how Universal Design Creator Ronald L. Mace, who used a wheelchair for mobility, did not name it disability inclusion design.

His genius understood that when you design without barriers – EVERYONE BENEFITS. 

The ramp and wide sidewalk may be essential for the person who uses a wheelchair.

But the lack of steps also removes a tripping hazard.

Wide sidewalks benefit young families pushing strollers.

Curbramps are beloved by the armada of delivery professionals rolling hundreds of pounds of goods through the central city as e-commerce and online buying expands.

 

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

I did not invent Universal Design.

That honor goes to the late architect and planner Ronald L. Mace, FAIA, founder of the Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University, who coined the term universal design.

He defined it as "the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design."

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

How can you be in the design business and pretend not to see that outdoor lifts fail to serve wheelchair users?

How disingenuous is it to say your studio designs for all, but you create a 400-unit apartment building – with 100 reserved to be affordable/accessible dwellings – accessed by an outdoor lift doomed to fail in less than a year of operation. 

For the record, I have surveyed 100 lifts in Miami-Dade County. More than 95% were nonfunctioning.

Many had been blocked by a potted plant.

Others led to locked doors. 

 

 

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

Outdoor lifts – instead of less costly, low maintenance ramps – are routinely used as the only way for a person with a disability to access a condominium complex, apartment building, office block or mixed-use main lobby.

They may meet code, but they are operated with a key that always goes missing.

They break down because they require intense maintenance.

If they are in a nightlife district with lots of bars, they tend to be used as de facto restrooms – for No 1, No 2 and vomit. 

 

HONORED THAT MY AWARD WINNING STREET PHOTOGRAPHY WILL HELP ILLUSTRATE

URBANIST AUTHOR THOMAS WILSON’S UPCOMING BOOK: EXCEPTIONAL PLACES

Thomas Wilson is a planner, author and scholar who is completing "Exceptional Places" about iconic historic districts.

My photo above illustrates this excerpt:

Ocean Drive art deco hotels in Miami Beach.

The city’s preservation movement of the 1970s and 1980s succeeded in saving its historic resources and creating one of the nation’s most iconic historic districts.

Following its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s, South Beach went into decline as newer, larger hotels were built elsewhere on the island.

In the mid-1980s new investment on Ocean Drive led to a resurgence of interest in South Beach (and Miami Beach in general), eventually positioning it as an international destination.

The historic core is the Miami Beach Architectural District, which includes much of the southern third of the city and encompasses the Art Deco District of mostly smaller hotels, commercial strips, and residential areas.

The latter elements are progressively more prevalent towards the Biscayne Bay side of the island.

According to the nomination form the district “contains the largest concentration of 1920s and 1930s era resort architecture in the United States.” 

Visit Thomas Wilson’s Substack at:

https://thomasdwilson.substack.com/p/exceptional-places

 

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

I would be on the Forbes richest people on earth list if I had 10 bucks for every time a planner, architect or engineer said “well, it may not work well, but it’s technically ADA compliant.”

What is that? 

Do you ever hear an architect saying “well, the roof is made of paper and will fall in within a matter of months, but if it passes inspection to get a certificate of occupancy, we’ll go home and pretend we didn’t design crap.”

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

I have seen the isolation – and its detrimental mental and physical health impact – created by parks, schools and city halls that are not fully accessible.

If you are in the design field, you MUST remember that the ADA is the FLOOR, not the CEILING.

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

Call me the Universal Design Evangelist.

The Pied Piper of inclusion for all. 

Jane Jacobs biographer Jenna Lang once dubbed me “the Jane Jacobs of Universal Design.”

I was a direct caregiver to a person who battled chronic pain, dozens of surgeries and used a power wheelchair for mobility.

I might not be able to stamp plans like an architect or engineer – but for 35 years, I saw first-hand the humiliation of using a wheelchair ramp in an unlit back alley – at a brand new building that should have featured access at the main entrance.

 

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

I get architects who say “it’s a fire house, no wheelchair user will work there” when the very same architecture firm has repurposed an old firehouse into a senior center, day care or even two-level restaurant – where wheelchair access is needed on all floors.

For that matter, if the second floor of a fire house couldn’t be reached by elevator – a decorated, retired, disabled firefighter could not visit his/her old workmates, or give a lecture on evacuation technique best practices for people with disabilities.

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

Today, even more than a third of a century after the adoption of the ADA, I still encounter affordable housing developers trying to pass on the cost of accessible units – to the people with disabilities who could not afford to make the modifications in ten lifetimes.

I must deal with traffic engineers that are aghast at the idea of a road diet – taking away a lane of speeding, dangerous traffic and using that space to widen sidewalks to enhance safe mobility – for wheelchair users and all pedestrians.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

My Miami City Hall job also allowed me to hold some city and private sector leaders’ feat to the fire – guaranteeing the ADA was met and exceeded.

I remember catching a horrible barrier created in the drawings for a brand new sky bridge that would serve tens of thousands.

A well-meaning city department head told me not to worry, it would surely be corrected “because everything has to be ADA.”

I replied that people have to be kept in line. 

My analogy: murder, assault, robbery, burglary and fraud are illegal – but lots of people break the rules if we do not police them.

UNIVERSAL DESIGN MYTHS BUSTED:

FACTS THAT FOSTER INCLUSION

I’m so proud to be one of the featured speakers for the inclusive webinar hosted by the Starkloff Disability Institute.

Register for the FREE event today.

Then visit Zoom on April 10 2025 to hear me bust some Universal Design Myths.

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_CZXwv25VSoG_YSvPSPmMFQ?t=1739485035944

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

Along with covering growth and development for a large and influential Midwest newspaper in the 1990s, I was the guy tapped for the disability stories – including deciphering the new Americans Disabilities Act.

The ADA, the strongest federal civil rights legislation for people with disabilities, became the law of the land in 1990.

On election day 2000, my wife and I landed in Miami.

She soon was working as an ADA coordinator for a diverse city and I was the senior urban policy advisor for the Chair of the City of Miami Commission.

After a dreadful period, Miami was booming and I was the point person to figure out whether hundreds of huge development proposals were good or bad for the city, Ta-da, once again starting meeting at 9 a.m. and working well past midnight! 

 

 

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

When I was hired at the 35^th largest newspaper in the U.S., I found out I was starting at the bottom.

Night school board and town council meetings in the hinterlands.

I was promoted (sentenced?) to the City of Columbus Development Commission – a board that met well into the wee hours – too late to beat deadline for the morning paper.

I also married young, to a person who used a wheelchair for mobility.

The combination of learning about how “planning nerds” and developers operated + my spouse’s mobility needs + my deep human empathy gained through watching my mom’s tortured days – forged my career.

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

My non MLB dream was to become an author. 

My mom battled with severe mental illness her entire adult life.

During my upbringing in the exurbs of northeast Ohio, she was institutionalized and put on heavy medication regimens.

I figured her first born son could tell her stories as a way of casting off the 1970s middle class suburban stigma of seeing psychologists, psychiatrists and spending time in a mental health ward.

I graduated with a degree in journalism, covering the losingest major college football team in the nation while at Kent State. I was on my way to being a pro sports beat writer.

 

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

Call me the accidental urbanist.

I never dreamed I would be speaking around the world and the U.S. on Universal Design and how to make cities better and more inclusive for all people – especially those with disabilities.

My first dream was to be a major league baseball player.

Let’s just say if there really were deals with the devil, I’d have played third base for the Cleveland Guardians for a decade and my soul would have been headed to a very hot and uncomfortable place.

When it turned out I was not so great at hitting a baseball, I figured I’d be a sportswriter covering a major league team.

My dad worked in the back shop of the Akron Beacon Journal, so I figured he could help me get a foot in the door and soon I’d be writing about walk-off home runs and near no-hitters.

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

Steve Wright is an award-winning Universal Design consultant, writer, public policy expert and advocate for people with disabilities who Jane Jacobs biographer Jenna Lang once dubbed “the Jane Jacobs of Universal Design.” 

He created and taught a groundbreaking Universal Design course University of Miami and has lectured on the subject nationally and globally.

Along with conducting Universal Design workshops for dozens of clients, he has published thousands of articles on planning for an inclusive built environment. 

Wright has worked at some of the nation’s leading urban design, architecture and mobility engineering firms.

Wright is featured the nation’s preeminent expert in design and public policy to increase quality of life for people who use wheelchairs for mobility in “Mark – A Call to Action.”

The 90-minute disability positive documentary by an Emmy-winning producer-director premiered in Tokyo to a host of U.S. State Department Officials and renowned Japanese disability advocates.

Wright is an acclaimed visual artist who has exhibited fine art photographs from his urban work in Tokyo, Istanbul, Paris, Barcelona, Marrakech, Cairo, Lisbon, London, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Samarkand, Montevideo, Bogota, Mexico City, Prague, Medellin and countless major cities in North America.

 

 

 

ALL URBAN DESIGN SHOULD BE HUMAN-CENTERED

UNIVERSAL DESIGN IS THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT

This isn’t just about compliance with the ADA; it’s about envisioning spaces where everyone can live, work, and thrive without barriers.

Steve Wright, a universal design expert, calls for raising the bar beyond minimal standards.

From accessible sidewalks to universally designed housing and transit, the built environment should prioritize usability and safety for everyone, including seniors and people with disabilities.

Universal Design improves quality of life for all. 

Features like ramps, wide sidewalks, and step-free entrances don’t just aid wheelchair users—they benefit parents with strollers, elderly pedestrians, and delivery professionals.

The CDC reports that one in four people will experience a disability at some point, and yet, under 1% of U.S. housing is fully accessible. 

Investing in inclusive design now yields long-term health, economic, and social benefits, making cities stronger, healthier, and more connected for future generations.

LISBON, PORTUGAL

 UNIVERSAL DESIGN -- BLESSED BY THE HEAVENS

I’ve always said Universal Design is sustainable, durable, flexible and valuable.

Here, at Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon Portugal, the heavens light the way to the ramp of access for all.

CASA DO POETA SETABUL PORTUGAL

PERFECT LOCATION, GREAT PRICE POINT, 

LARGE ENOUGH FOR A FAMILY OF 3-4 TO LIVE IN -- NOT JUST VISIT!

Setubal is a gem and Casa do Poeta is in a vibrant location.

You are footsteps from an overlook of the entire waterfront, with a warm, locals bar-restaurants serving local seafood.

There are lots of small, free or low admission museums.

The restaurants are amazing and if you find a locals place, you may get a 5-course fresh seafood meal with wine for under 15 euros including tip.

The architecture is stunning.

This is the real Portugal.

And you are less than an hour's train ride or drive from Lisbon's large airport.

CASA DO POETA SETABUL PORTUGAL

PERFECT LOCATION, GREAT PRICE POINT, 

LARGE ENOUGH FOR A FAMILY OF 3-4 TO LIVE IN -- NOT JUST VISIT!

I could have stayed a week or a month at this Casa do Poeta.

It is footsteps from a grand arch that leads to the main drag into the fascinating old town.

Just below the hill is the region's main boulevard -- Avenida Luisa Todi -- and all of its parks and amenities.

Casa do Poeta Setabul is a 5-minute walk to the famous choco frito restaurants. Maybe 10 to Praca Bocage, the place for visitors.

It's 15 minutes tops to get to Marcado Livramento -- one of the greatest public markets on earth.

The ferry to Troia is very close, as is the entire old town.

CASA DO POETA SETABUL PORTUGAL

PERFECT LOCATION, GREAT PRICE POINT, 

LARGE ENOUGH FOR A FAMILY OF 3-4 TO LIVE IN -- NOT JUST VISIT!

The only demerit in a sea of positives at Casa do Poeta Setabul was the tiny liquid soap dispenser in the bathroom.

Even unique, family-owned properties have figured out it's good hosting to have a large bottle of shampoo/bodywash mounted in the shower and a full bottle of hand soap in the bathroom sink.

On arrival, there was one dispenser, basically out of soap, by the sink.

This may have been an oversight by the cleaning crew -- but it forced me to waste 40 minutes walking to a grocery, waiting in checkout line and walking back...just to have soap and shampoo.

The neighborhood looks a bit dodgy with graffiti. Don't be put off.

The town is transforming and every other building is being renovated.

But I never heard noise from construction during the day or bars and night.

CASA DO POETA SETABUL PORTUGAL

PERFECT LOCATION, GREAT PRICE POINT, 

LARGE ENOUGH FOR A FAMILY OF 3-4 TO LIVE IN -- NOT JUST VISIT!

I was so fortunate to book this property.

The owners were fabulous about keeping in touch before I left the US and while I was in Portugal leading up to this visit and during my stay.

They shared many tips on places to see, things to eat, etc.

I'm a history buff and the apartment shares a wall with the birthplace of legendary Setubal and subversive poet and writer Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage, which serves as a museum to his works and also as an archive of photographer Americo Ribeiro.

The unit even comes with free parking if you can nab a spot at the next door church square.

Bed was comfy, AC worked well, kitchen facilities were top notch and shower had endless hot water.

PONTA DA PIEDADE GROTTO TOUR IN LAGOS BY VIATOR

GREAT VALUE AND SAFE AT SEA WITH SUPER PROFESSIONAL

ENGLISH SPEAKING GUIDE

As most of you know, Viator works with thousands of subcontractors.

They are up front about telling you what sub is conducting your tour.

When I arrived at the docks, an English speaking person told me I was the only one that booked for my time.

I feared I would be left to fend for myself, despite having a very tight daily schedule.

No, he placed me on another boat with a top notch captain and English speaking guide.

All was well.

No worries with Viator.

PONTA DA PIEDADE GROTTO TOUR IN LAGOS BY VIATOR

GREAT VALUE AND SAFE AT SEA WITH SUPER PROFESSIONAL

ENGLISH SPEAKING GUIDE

I have been in some of the most exotic parts of the world -- done on my own and without a guide.

So when I swear by Viator -- that means the company is doing something right.

We left right on time, returned right on time and every moment at sea felt safe and sound.

The narration was spot on.

Going out the channel gives a great view of Old Lagos.

Getting out to the rock formations and grottos -- on the way to and at Ponta da Piedade, gives you a picture post card view from the Atlantic up to the amazing cliffs and openings.

DANGEROUS BY DESIGN

PROTECTING OUT OF CONTROL CARS FROM HITTING UTILITY POLLS

TAKES PRIORITY OVER PROTECTING HUMANS FROM BEING RUN OVER

The DOT assault on humanity knows no boundaries.

Giant post on sidewalk forces vulnerable pedestrians within inches of dangerous Miami traffic.

Location is Coral Way, a designated scenic corridor.