[OKC] [ok-sus] ULI presentation on OKC Walkability by Jeff Speck

[Kelley C Smith]

This guy certainly has good credentials..... and I hope I can come, but 
realistically, chances are I cannot. But I will make a couple of comments.

Mr. Speck has been hired to improve pedestrian activity downtown? 
Downtown is already infinitely more pedestrian-friendly than most of the 
rest of town -- that's not to say that it's fantastic or anything.... 
I'm a little tired of the tax money that has been thrown into the 
downtown and Bricktown areas when we can't have any sort of sidewalk in 
most neighborhoods.

And when the City Council has permitted the gargantuan concentration in 
retailing -- I know neighborhoods that have fought Wal Mart and lost -- 
that has made it nearly impossible for so many people to purchase basic 
necessities without motorized transportation.

So, I hope to come (but given our inadequate public transit system which 
will not be running when this talk concludes) I probably will not.

Should I write my city councilman?  :-)

Kelley

Shauna  Struby wrote:
>
> Presentation for the ULI on March 31 on the making OKC walkable link.
>
>  
>
> ULI Oklahoma - Making OKC Walkable- Jeff Speck
>
> Date: *March 31, 2009*
> Time: *5:30 PM*
> Location: *One Park Avenue, Crystal Room, Oklahoma City, OK*
> Venue: *Skirvin Hilton Hotel*
> Google Map 
> <http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=One%20Park%20Avenue,%20Crystal%20Room,%20Oklahoma%20City,%20OK>
>
> http://oklahoma.uli.org/
>
> Making OKC Walkable. City planner and former NEA Design Director Jeff 
> Speck has been commissioned by the City of Oklahoma City to advise it 
> on improving pedestrian activity and street life downtown. In his 
> presentation, Mr. Speck will explain why OKC is ranked dead last 
> nationally in walkability by Prevention magazine and what easy but 
> dramatic changes are needed to remedy the problem.
>
> Mr. Speck's presentation begins at 6 p.m. and is free to the public.
>
> Jeff Speck, AICP LEED-AP, is the principal of Speck & Associates, LLC, 
> in Washington, D.C. He regularly provides his expertise to civic 
> leaders to make their communities more livable. Through design work, 
> lectures, writing, and federal service, he has contributed to an 
> international movement that seeks to re-center the practice of urban 
> design around humanist principles. In 2003, Speck was appointed 
> director of deisng at the National Endowment for the Arts, a post he 
> held through May of 2007. In this position, he directed the 
> Endowment's two leadership initiatives in design: the Mayors' 
> Institute on City Design and its rural counterpart, Your Town: 
> Changing its Future. Prior to his federal service, Mr. Speck spent 10 
> years as director of town planning at Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company 
> (DPZ), where he helped the firm solidify its status as the leading 
> practitioner of the New Urbanism, a global effort that seeks 
> alternatives to suburban sprawl and urban disinvestment.
>
>  
>
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