The mayors of Charlotte, Detroit, Houston, and Sacramento, plus 12 additional local land use leaders from these cities have been selected as the 2010-2011 class of fellows for the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Daniel Rose Center for Public Leadership in Land Use. Each of the four mayors is leading a team of three additional fellows, including public- and private-sector representatives, from their respective cities. The yearlong Daniel Rose Fellowship provides participants with leadership training and professional development opportunities, and it benefits their respective cities by offering technical assistance on a local land-use challenge.

Meet the Fellows

The Land Use Challenges

Here are summaries of the challenges selected by the four cities.

Charlotte: The City of Charlotte seeks to identify the initial implementation steps to re-energize, reposition and ensure long-term viability of development along Independence Boulevard, historically one of Charlotte’s major commercial corridors. Read more.

Detroit: Livernois is a primary neighborhood commercial thoroughfare that once thrived as the “Avenue of Fashion.” While the corridor has seen an increase in both public and private investment over the past few years, these investments have not yet yielded the transformation necessary to make Livernois a destination place for retail and restaurants again. Detroit’s Daniel Rose Fellowship land use challenge is to create a strategy for Livernois to once again thrive as an urban main street that draws visitors from the City and region. Read more.

Houston: In Houston, deteriorating multifamily housing stock located along major thoroughfares are creating blight conditions in some adjacent middle-income neighborhoods. Many of these developments have exceeded the life expectancies of their construction, and the City is faced with multiple questions about how to prevent this trend of disinvestment from spreading into nearby healthy communities. Read more.

Sacramento: The Daniel Rose Fellowship land use challenge is to balance the need to develop The Sacramento Railyards into a regional destination with exciting, vibrant amenities, while also revitalizing Sacramento’s existing urban core. Read more.