Mackenzie Carpenter has written an engaging profile of David Lewis, the community planning pioneer whom Richard Florida calls the 'Jane Jacobs of Urban Design,' as he celebrates his 90th birthday.
Carpenter writes of the longtime Pittsburgh resident and native South African who co-founded Urban Design Associates -- "one of the first community-based city planning firms anywhere" -- and has held a faculty position with the Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture for most of the last 50 years.
Lewis, the archetypal Renaissance Man, "spends much time these days in a Millvale workshop overseeing people wearing masks, wielding torches, cutting steel into sculpture."
"For all this, Mr. Lewis says he's proudest of UDA, the team of architects and planners he assembled here in the 1960s, founded on a then-revolutionary principle: To revitalize cities, communities should participate in the planning and design of their own neighborhoods."
FULL STORY: David Lewis: An Urban Legend
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