"Power Sharing through Design on Chicago’s South and West Sides”

Maurice D. Cox is the Emma Bloomberg Professor in Residence of Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Prior to joining the GSD faculty, Cox was the director of planning and development for the City of Detroit (2015-2019) and Commissioner of Planning and Development for the City of Chicago (2019-2023), where he focused on the challenges facing contemporary urban revitalization.

Cox is an urban designer acclaimed for his ability to merge architecture, design, and politics in pursuit of design excellence and the equitable development of cities. His professional biography offers a new model for what a designer in society can be, demonstrating that planning, architecture, and design operate within a sociopolitical sphere.

To that end, his career spans public service, private practice, and higher education, including his tenure as mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia; as Design Director for the National Endowment for the Arts under two presidents; and as a tenured faculty member at the University of Virginia and Tulane University. Cox received a Bachelor of Architecture from the Cooper Union and a 2005 Loeb Fellowship from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Host or Publisher Harvard University Graduate School of Design