Jeff Speck
Downtowns are competing for residents, employers and investment against suburbs, other cities and the option of remote work. The decisions that determine whether they win, where streets go, how wide they are, what is built at ground level, are made one project at a time by people who rarely see them as a single strategy. The cost of getting that wrong shows up later in vacancy rates, carbon footprints, public health budgets and the talent that quietly leaves.
Jeff Speck is an American city planner who shows public and private leaders how walkability decides the economic, environmental and public health performance of their downtowns.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Jeff Speck
- He has translated walkability from a planning preference into a measurable argument about carbon, healthcare costs, property values and downtown economic performance, set out in Walkable City and applied in master plans for Memphis, Grand Rapids, Lowell and Tampa.
- His General Theory of Walkability gives mayors, developers and corporate site selectors a single framework for evaluating the trade-offs in any street, block or downtown investment.
- He brings both sides of the table: ten years inside Duany Plater-Zyberk shaping the New Urbanism, four years running design policy at the National Endowment for the Arts, and almost two decades leading his own consultancy advising cities and the real estate industry.
- Walkable City is the best-selling urban planning book written this century, and his two 2013 TED Talks have passed six million views, which means audiences arrive already familiar with the argument and ready to discuss application.
- The 2022 Seaside Prize, awarded previously to Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander, places him in a small group of figures recognised for shaping how cities are now planned.
Biography highlights
- Principal of Speck Dempsey, the urban design consultancy he has led since 2007.
- Director of Design at the US National Endowment for the Arts, 2003 to 2007, where he ran the Mayors’ Institute on City Design and founded the Governors’ Institute on Community Design.
- Former Director of Town Planning at Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company, a ten-year tenure inside the firm at the centre of the New Urbanism movement.
- Author of Walkable City and Walkable City Rules; co-author of Suburban Nation and The Smart Growth Manual.
- FAICP, FCNU, LEED-AP, Honorary ASLA. Master of Architecture with Distinction, Harvard Graduate School of Design.
- 2022 Seaside Prize, an award whose previous recipients include Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander.
- Ranked among the ten most influential urbanists of all time in Planetizen’s 2023 reader poll.
Biography
Most arguments about downtowns get stuck on aesthetics. The serious case is economic. Jeff Speck has spent twenty years showing public officials, developers and corporate leaders that the width of a lane, the placement of a parking lot and the design of a block decide whether a city captures investment, talent and tax base, or quietly loses it.
Walkable City, published in 2012, set out the General Theory of Walkability and the ten-step process Speck uses to apply it. It became the best-selling urban planning book written this century, and his two 2013 TED Talks have since passed six million views. Walkable City Rules followed in 2018 as the operating manual for practitioners.
The argument is built on three decades inside the work. Ten years as Director of Town Planning at Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company, the firm at the centre of the New Urbanism movement. Four years running design at the US National Endowment for the Arts, where he oversaw the Mayors’ Institute on City Design and created the Governors’ Institute on Community Design. Almost two decades leading Speck Dempsey on master plans and street designs for cities including Memphis, Grand Rapids, Lowell and Tampa.
The 2022 Seaside Prize, awarded previously to Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander, recognises the small group of figures whose work has changed how American cities are now planned. For boards, mayors and developers wrestling with the future of downtown, Speck is the rare adviser who can move between climate strategy, real estate economics and the design of a single intersection without losing the thread.
Key speaking topics
- Walkable cities and downtown economic performance
- The General Theory of Walkability
- Street design and the public realm
- New Urbanism and smart growth
- Cities, climate and public health economics
- Downtown revitalisation and real estate investment
- Transportation policy and the future of the car
Ideal for
- Mayors, city managers, planning directors and downtown development authorities
- Real estate developers, REITs and corporate site selectors making place-based investment decisions
- Sustainability, ESG and climate leads in organisations linking property and emissions strategy
- Boards and senior teams in retail, hospitality and mixed-use real estate
Audience outcomes
- A working definition of walkability as four conditions a street must meet, applicable to any block under review
- The economic case for walkable places, expressed in terms of property values, retail performance, healthcare costs and carbon
- A ten-step sequence for prioritising downtown investments when the budget will fund a fraction of what is on the wishlist
- A clear view of the trade-offs between car capacity, street life and downtown tax base, with named examples of cities that have got it right and wrong
- A shared vocabulary between planners, developers, finance teams and elected officials for the next set of decisions
Talks
Speck makes the economic, environmental and public health case for designing American cities around the pedestrian rather than the car, using examples from his master planning work.
Key takeaways:
- Why walkability is a measurable outcome, not an aesthetic preference
- The General Theory of Walkability and the four conditions a street must meet
- How downtown design decisions translate into carbon, health costs and property values
A practical breakdown of the moves cities can make to shift the balance away from car dependence, drawn from his consulting work with American downtowns.
Key takeaways:
- The role of mixed use, parking policy, street design and pedestrian comfort
- Where to start when the budget will fund a fraction of the wishlist
- Examples of cities that have implemented the changes and the outcomes that followed