Jeff Speck is an American

city planner An urban planner (also known as town planner) is a professional who practices in the field of town planning, urban planning or city planning. An urban planner may focus on a specific area of practice and have a title such as city planner, town ...

, writer, and lecturer who is the principal at the

urban design Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, cities, and regional spaces, urban d ...

and consultancy firm, Speck & Associates. He has authored or co-authored several books on urban planning, including his 2012 book, ''Walkable City: How Downtown Saves America, One Step at a Time''. He is an advocate for

New Urbanism New Urbanism is an urban design movement which promotes environmentally friendly habits by creating walkable neighbourhoods containing a wide range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually i ...

and more "walkable" cities and has given

TED Talks TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

on the subjects.

Early life and education

Speck grew up in Belmont, Massachusetts. He earned a BA from

Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...

, where he graduated '' magna cum laude'' in 1985. After graduating from Williams, Speck would go on to attend Syracuse University, where he earned an MFA in art history. He then attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, earning a

Master of Architecture The “Master of Architecture”(M.Arch or MArch) or a “Bachelor of Architecture” is a professional degree in architecture, qualifying the graduate to move through the various stages of professional accreditation (internship, exams) that res ...

Career

Speck began his urban design career at Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (now DPZ CoDesign) where, over the course of 10 years, he became the Director of Town Planning. While at DPZ, Speck co-authored (with

Andrés Duany Andrés Duany (born September 7, 1949) is an American architect, an urban planner, and a founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism. Early life and education Duany was born in New York City but grew up in Cuba until 1960. He attended The Ch ...

and

Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (born December 20, 1950) is a professor at the University of Miami's School of Architecture and an architect and urban planner in Miami, Florida. Plater-Zyberk is considered to be a representative of the New Urbanism scho ...

) a book entitled, ''Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream''. Published in 2000, the book details the effects of

urban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growt ...

on cities and offers a plan for improved urban redevelopment. From 2003 to 2007, Speck was the Director of Design at the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

(NEA). While there, he oversaw the Mayors' Institute on City Design and created the Governors' Institute on Community Design. After leaving the NEA, Speck started his own urban design consultancy firm, Speck & Associates, which was originally based in Washington, D.C. As part of the business, Speck has created master plans and waterfront plans for a variety of cities including,

Lowell, Massachusetts Lowell () is a city in Massachusetts, in the United States. Alongside Cambridge, It is one of two traditional seats of Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in 2020, it was the fifth most populous city in Massachusetts as of ...

;

Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Memp ...

, Tennessee; Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Tampa, Florida. In 2008, Speck completed construction on his family's house in Washington, D.C. The three-story building sits on a flatiron lot and measures about 500 square feet per floor. It was profiled in '' The Washington Post Magazine'' soon after its completion. In 2009, Speck co-authored ''The Smart Growth Manual'' with Andrés Duany and Mike Lydon. The book offers a wide variety of

New Urbanist New Urbanism is an urban design movement which promotes environmentally friendly habits by creating walkable neighbourhoods containing a wide range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually inf ...

planning principles and techniques. In 2012, Speck released his book, ''Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time''. The book is split into two parts, with the first part detailing Speck's "General Theory of

Walkability Walkability is a term for planning concepts best understood by the mixed-use of amenities in high-density neighborhoods where people can access said amenities by foot. It is based on the idea that urban spaces should be more than just transport ...

." The second part provides Speck's ten-step process toward attaining walkability in cities. ''Walkable City'' was the best-selling city-planning book of 2013 and 2014. Speck gave two TED Talks on the subject in 2013 and has given numerous lectures on the topic since. In 2015, Speck's firm was hired by businessman, Jeff Vinik, to design and plan the $1-billion redevelopment of downtown Tampa. By that time, Speck had also relocated his family and business (Speck & Associates) to Brookline, Massachusetts.

Bibliography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Speck, Jeff American urban planners Williams College alumni Syracuse University alumni Harvard University alumni Living people American non-fiction writers Year of birth missing (living people) Sustainable transport pioneers