ULI Honors Peter Calthorpe With Nichols Prize

"Fifteen years ago, Peter Calthorpe was just another Bay Area visionary with an imaginative intellect and absolute conviction about how the world ought to be.

Today, ideas still tumble in all directions when the 56-year-old Berkeley planner speaks. But now his client list ranges from the sheikh of Dubai to the state of Louisiana, and he's about to receive an award from a developer trade group with 30,000 members.

If Calthorpe feels the slightest awkwardness at being honored by an industry that many intellectuals instinctively loathe, he isn't letting on.

'It feels great,' he grinned after a breakfast conversation that caromed from topic to topic. 'I find a lot of developers to be a lot more progressive than bureaucrats and neighborhood groups.'"