Omaha Launches Citywide Urban Design Plan

Omaha by Design is a partnership between the Mayor's Office, the Planning Department, and Lively Omaha, a business and civic group dedicated to improving the quality of life in the City to improve the natural and built environment in Omaha through better design practices and guidelines. To assist with the project, they have retained Jonathan Barnett, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design and member of Wallace Roberts and Todd, a nationwide planning firm. "What you have here is a big metro with every type of issue. Industrial districts, rapidly developing suburbs, older inner city neighborhoods, every kind of urban design problem is here," said planner Jonathan Barnett (quote from a separate article). Barnett "said he knows of no other citywide effort of this type."