Creating Home: A Summit Exploring Policies, Practices, and Solutions

Join us May 8th for a continuation of our FutureisNow speaker series. "Creating Home: A Summit Exploring Policies, Practices, and Promising Solutions" is a gathering where policymakers, community leaders, and advocates converge to dissect existing housing policies and brainstorm innovative solutions to increase sustainable housing options in Northwest Arkansas.

The event is free, but space is limited. Register now!

Doors open at 8:30am for breakfast and networking . The program begins promptly at 9am.

Sessions will include:

Bruce Katz,“ New Directions in Housing”

Alli Thurmond Quinlan, “ The Future of Living in Northwest Arkansas”

Dan Parolek, “Missing Middle Housing: Evolving from Concept to Impactful Solutions in Public and Private Sectors.”

The FutureIsNow speaker series is presented by Groundwork at the Northwest Arkansas Council and sponsored by the Walton Family Foundation.

Groundwork, Workforce Housing for Northwest Arkansas, is proud to present the FutureIsNow speaker series featuring renowned national and local experts on housing issues. Speakers will share innovative solutions and best practices in building walkable, livable and vibrant communities.

Bruce Katz is the Founding Director of the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Previously he served as inaugural Centennial Scholar at Brookings Institution and as vice president and director of Brooking’s Metropolitan Policy Program for 20 years. He is a Visiting Professor in Practice at London School of Economics, and previously served as chief of staff to the secretary of Housing and Urban Development and staff director of the Senate Subcommittee on Housing and Urban Affairs. Katz co-led the Obama administration’s housing and urban transition team. He is coauthor of The Metropolitan Revolution and The New Localism: How Cities Can Thrive in the Age of Populism, editor or coeditor of several books on urban and metropolitan issues, and a frequent media commentator.

Alli Thurmond Quinlan is an architect, landscape architect, and infill development advocate. She founded and runs Flintlock Ltd Co (a multi-disciplinary design practice), Flintlock Development (an urban infill real estate development company), and Valkyrie Design Cooperative (a shared services co-op that supports and promotes women in the design profession) in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She also served on the Fayetteville Planning Commission and Construction Board of Appeals and serves as a senior faculty member and Board Member for the Incremental Development Alliance. Alli believes in building environmentally, socially, and economically vibrant places that protect productive landscapes from sprawl. Her work solo and with the University of Arkansas Community Design Center has been honored with national and international awards from the Congress for New Urbanism, the American Society of Landscape Architects, the American Institute of Architects, Architizer, and the American Planning Association. Allison’s practice focuses on creating beauty in lovable, walkable places.

Daniel Parolek is an urban designer and architect, author, and the founding principal of Opticos Design, a B Corporation focused on equitable urban placemaking, innovative housing design and policy, and zoning reform for walkable urbanism. Daniel and his work have been featured in many high-profile publications including The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Next City, Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, and Curbed. Daniel has championed the Missing Middle Housing movement, launched missingmiddlehousing.com, and wrote the book “Missing Middle Housing: Thinking Big and Building Small to Respond to Today’s Housing Crisis,” which is now available from Island Press. As a thought leader in zoning reform efforts to remove barriers for walkable urbanism, Daniel co-authored the book “Form-Based Codes: A Guide for Planners, Urban Designers, Municipalities, and Developers,” with Karen Parolek and Paul C. Crawford (named one of Planetizen’s best books in 2009), and co-founded the non-profit think tank, the FormBased Code Institute. His innovative work is diverse across public and private sector clients and includes the master plan, building type design, and architecture for Culdesac Tempe, which is fully entitled and will be the largest car-free community in the country when built in 2021, the country’s first Missing Middle Neighborhood in the Omaha, NE metro, which is redefining Class A multifamily, a citywide form-based code for Cincinnati, Ohio, and a sustainable growth strategy for Libreville, the capital city of Gabon, Africa. Daniel is a frequent presenter and recently served as a board member of Transform. He has a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Urban Design from the University of California at Berkeley. Daniel is inspired by international travel, especially in Italy. The seeds of his passion for walkable urban places started while he was growing up in the small town of Columbus, Nebraska.

Host or Publisher Northwest Arkansas Council