Roberta Brandes Gratz

Roberta Brandes Gratz is a board member of Project for Public Spaces, as well as a critic, journalist and consultant. She is a well-known advocate for urban husbandry as urban rejuvenation. Rather than being rebuilt wholesale, she says, urban centers should be revitalized slowly and organically, preserving the inherent value in urban areas which already exist.

Her books, The Living City: Thinking Small in a Big Way and Cities Back from the Edge: New Life for Downtown, offer insight into her idea of revitalization as rebirth of the city, rather than simply rebuilding.

Jane Jacobs has said of her, "Roberta Gratz is wonderful at discovering important things that are going on that most of us have not yet heard of."