 Peter Calthorpe is an architect, planner and urban designer that EnviroCitizen.org is very excited about. He was a founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism. He was named one of 25 "innovators on the cutting edge" by Newsweek Magazine for his work redefining the models of urban and suburban growth in America. His long and honored career in urban design, planning and architecture began in 1976, combining his experience in each discipline to develop new approaches to urban revitalization, suburban growth, and regional planning.
Peter Calthorpe is the founder of the architecture and planning firm, Calthorpe Associates. With a skilled inter-disciplinary staff of architects, landscape architects, planners and urban designers, Calthorpe Associates provides an integrated set of services. The firm's expertise ranges from urban infill and redevelopment plans to new towns and regional growth strategies; from housing and retail development to commercial and civic design. This wide-ranging experience provides a unique capability that facilitates the development of plans that are grounded in what can be called practical innovation.
Since forming Calthorpe Associates in 1983, Calthorpe's work has expanded to include major projects in urban, new town and suburban settings in the United States and abroad. His work began to include more than designing buildings, but also neighborhoods. With groundbreaking work in Portland, Salt Lake, Austin, the Twin Cities and Los Angeles, he has helped established the emerging field of regional design. During the Clinton presidency, Calthorpe provided direction for Housing Unit Development (HUD) Empowerment Zone and Consolidated Planning Programs as well as the Hope VI program to rebuild some of the country's worst public housing projects. In 1992, he became a founder of the Congress for New Urbanism and was its first board president. Calthorpe was also selected to help rebuild the state of Louisiana after the damage of the hurricanes Katrina and Rita wiped out the towns and to turn them into new, sustainable places for many generations.
Through design, innovation, publications and recognized projects, EnviroCitizen.org found that Peter Calthorpe's 30 year practice has helped solidify a national trend towards the key principals of New Urbanism: that successful places—whether neighborhoods, villages, or urban centers—must be diverse in use and user, walkable, transit-oriented and environmentally sustainable. Calthorpe has been able to fulfill his own ideas in making a sustainably built environment. In recognition of his work, he was awarded ULI's prestigious "J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development" in 2006. EnviroCitizen.org hopes that he and others like him will continue to do such amazing work for our society as well as the future of our planet.
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