STORYTELLER AND ADVOCATE
Share your other top three destinations for where you’d go on your perfect Miami day.
(1) Miami Beach at 5:00 a.m. to run on the sand till
the sun rises.
(2) Ball and Chain in the heart of Calle Ocho
for great music, drink, and vibes any time — day or night.
(3) Play on the grass at William Jennings Bryan Park,
because I live on it and spent more than two years protecting the one acre of
greenspace from being paved over.
STORYTELLER AND ADVOCATE
What’s your favorite Miami memory?
Getting to create, from scratch, a revolutionary
course on Universal Design.
I taught it to graduate and undergraduate
architecture and urban design students at the University of Miami School of
Architecture.
If you could eat only one meal from a local
restaurant for the rest of your life, what would it be?
A BBQ steak sub, well done, on wheat, no cheese,
black olives as the only condiment, and hot cherry peppers on the side.
From Super Subs, an institution on Bird Road in
South Miami.
(I eat less than half the sub bun and have no fries or chips to keep it healthy!)
STORYTELLER AND ADVOCATE
What brings you most alive about the 305?
Walking for entertainment and exercise.
I lost 125 pounds eating healthier and walking from
my home in Shenandoah to the Miami River and throughout Little Havana.
I documented the Art Deco, Spanish Mission,
Mediterranean, and other 1920s to 1940s classic apartment, commercial, spiritual,
and single-family homes.
My images were part of a six month, one-man Local
Artist exhibition at the Art Deco Welcome Center in Miami Beach
It ran through mid-February 2024.
STORYTELLER AND ADVOCATE
Howdy, Steve! Who are you? What do you do?
I am a writer, visual artist, keynote speaker,
planner, educator, and advocate.
I work for myself, creating content about Universal
Design and a better built environment for people with disabilities.
My clients include the National Association of
REALTORS, the United Spinal Association, the American Planning Association,
Global Disability Inclusion Inc., and many others.
I also create workshops and speeches about how to
make cities more inclusive for all.
BY A RENOWNED
CITY PLANNER AND
AUTHOR OF
BOOKS ON VISIONARY PLANNING
I'm honored
to be working with Thomas D. Wilson on a new book about the nation's most
iconic historic places.
Tom is the
author of several books on the history of planning and design, including The
Oglethorpe Plan: Enlightenment Design in Savannah and Beyond and Charleston
and Savannah: The Rise, Fall, and Reinvention of Rival Cities.
My vast
travels as a planner/writer/educator/activist at the intersection of urban
policy and a better built environment for people with disabilities has created opportunities
to capture images of great American places.
.
THE BENEFITS AND TECHNIQUES TO MAKE IT HAPPEN
“Transformative placemaking focuses on neighborhoods and places at a hyper-local scale. It brings together programs, policies and practices that are intersectional,” said Tracy Hadden Loh, a Fellow at The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program-Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking.
“It combines the best of
economic development and infrastructure and the environmental movement.”
To increase the odds of success, the report suggests that
federal funds flow through to local areas only with “preconditions for growth
present and some assets for investment to scaffold onto,” such as potential
transit-oriented development; anchor institutions like universities and
hospitals; existing initiatives aimed at supporting local entrepreneurship and
business incubation; cultural activity clusters; or commitments to build rural
infrastructure.
“At the local level, we must break down silos [and] get the planner talking to the economic developer talking to the director of public works etc.,” Loh said.
“Anything else is pushing a boulder uphill.
THE BENEFITS AND TECHNIQUES TO MAKE IT HAPPEN
The Brookings report proposes what it has dubbed direct seed funding.
“Through this program, the Treasury Department would establish and capitalize state revolving loan funds that would provide direct seed capital through a combination of low-interest, potentially forgivable debt and working equity to locally managed neighborhood investment funds.
A one-time, $2-billion capitalization of these funds would yield $80 million at 4-percent interest to loan annually without touching the principal.
A 10-percent add-on to each transaction for working equity to
support local capacity-building would consume less than 0.5 percent of the
principal balance.”
The local neighborhood investment funds would allow residents of
eligible geographic areas — together with other public, private, and nonprofit
investors — to collectively purchase and develop or redevelop land or buildings
in commercial corridors in the targeted areas.
