Mount Vernon mayor tapped for national program to help Black neighborhoods through design

Mount Vernon’s mayor is among seven around the country who will collaborate on a program to bring racial justice to their communities through planning and design.

Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard was selected to the first-ever fellowship program jointly sponsored by the Mayors’ Institute on City Design and the Just City Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Each mayor will select a predominantly Black neighborhood that has faced “under-investment.” Through virtual meetings over the next 10 weeks they will work with experts in architecture, urban design, art activism, housing and public policy to better direct the neighborhood’s future.

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Patterson-Howard called the effort “an important part of our commitment to take a deeper look at our comprehensive plan and chart a future that incorporates and includes the diverse and rich history of Mount Vernon.”

“The City of Mount Vernon is committed to revitalizing our city through equitable investment,” she said Wednesday in a statement. “We are dedicated to serving our diverse community by effectively, and efficiently enhancing each resident’s quality of life.”

Joining her as MICD Just City fellows are: Mayor Randall Woodfin of Birmingham, AL; Mayor Stephen Benjamin of Columbia, SC; Mayor Yvonne Spicer of Framingham, MA; Mayor Errick Simmons of Greenville, MS; Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba of Jackson, MS; and Mayor Vince Williams of Union City, GA.

Sarah Whiting, dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, said the collaboration “could not be more timely nor more important.”

“We all know that our cities need help in recognizing the forces behind racial injustices — particularly in predominantly Black neighborhoods — and in finding vocabularies and strategies for transforming them into places of equity and opportunity,” she said in a statement announcing the fellowship program.

 The Mayors’ Institute on City Design is a program of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Tom Cochran, the conference’s CEO and executive director, called MICD’s small-group format and access to design experts “transformative” for mayors.

“Mayors are on the front lines of every difficult conversation our communities are having right now,” Cochran said. “They have the power to seize this moment of reckoning with racial injustices and unite their communities around real solutions.”

Twitter: @jonbandler