GLORIA KATZ
Fort Lauderdale, FL
BACKGROUND & EXPERIENCE: As an elected
official, Gloria focused on long-term urban design issues for the city
of Fort Lauderdale and the need to develop an urban design plan to help
commissioners make informed decisions about development projects. She has
extensive experience in consensus building among and between the various
community stakeholders. She created, coordinated, and developed the first
annual international design seminar for Fort Lauderdale in November 2000,
which concluded with a round table community building exercise designed to
create consensus about design strategy. She has experience leading several
other community building exercises in order to achieve consistency of
design across the city, including a series of design charrettes. She is
also very interested in controlled or “smart” growth, and how it relates
to traffic and density issues. She advocated for, and successfully
achieved, a new public transportation initiative culminating in the
operation of a neighborhood daily trolley.
In 2002, Gloria served a one-year term as Vice
Mayor. Prior to that, she was a Fort Lauderdale Commissioner since 1999.
She has long been a community activist and volunteer; before holding
political office she worked as a teacher, journalist, free-lance writer,
and editor.
RESEARCH INTERESTS: Gloria is interested in
using the downtown and surrounding neighborhoods of the city of Fort
Lauderdale to create a layered urban design model of the downtown and its
environs encompassing a plan for transportation and economic development
in line with ten design principles. The model will strive for consistency
of design while maintaining the character of neighborhoods and assessing
their potential to be poly-functional sub-centers of the city. The project
is designed to unite government, the citizenry, and academia and create an
involved, motivated, and educated community that can advocate for
sustainable development, smart growth, and livable communities. Consensus
building among diverse stakeholder groups will be a major strategy.
E-MAIL:
GloriaK@cityfort.com |
