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About Us
Southern Urbanism is a mission-based organization committed to building better cities in the South. Our vision is to bring practical expertise back to the discourse, to educate community leaders, and to generate a tidal wave of young industry professionals across the region.
Southern Urbanism works with distinguished students in the fields of economics, law, architecture, and entrepreneurship. Inquire about Fellowship and intern opportunities today.
As a 501c3 non-profit, we are member and donor-supported. You can contribute to our work by making a contribution today.
BOARD
Robert L Chapman
Topher Thomas
Aaron Lubeck
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF (Emeritus)
Gwen McCarter Nagle
ART DIRECTOR
Dave Alsobrooks
FELLOWS
Adeleine Geitner
Duke Initiative for Urban Studies Fellow on Sprawl Repair and Nodal Development
Vaneesha Patel
Mencken Publishing Fellow on Urban Development
Phil Veasley
Kronberg Fellow on Transportation and Affordability
Drew Tiedeman
Flintlock LAB Fellow on Race and Zoning
Zoe Tishaev
Duke Initiative for Urban Studies Fellow on Transportation Alternatives and University Development
Satchel Walton
Past Mencken Publishing Fellow on Urban Development
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Tesho Akindele recently retired from a nine-year professional soccer career where he represented FC Dallas, Orlando City, and the Canadian national team. Today, Tesho works for ATCO, a real estate development and operating company. His main focus is their Camp North End property, a 76-acre adaptive reuse and development project located in the heart of Charlotte, North Carolina. @Tesho13
Dave Alsobrooks is Southern Urbanism Quarterly’s Art Director. He is a seasoned artist, designer, brand strategist, and entrepreneur living and working in the world from a base in Durham, North Carolina. www.boundis.us
Mallory Baches, AICP, LEED AP, CNU-A, is President of the Congress for the New Urbanism, a member-based advocacy organization whose mission is to champion walkable urbanism. Not a CNU member? Join the movement for better-performing cities and towns today at www.cnu.org/join. You can also read more about CNU’s Strategic Plan at https://www. cnu.org/organization/strategic-plan-2020. @mallorybaches
Mary-Ann Baldwin has served as Mayor of Raleigh since 2019 and previously served on the Raleigh City Council from 2007 to 2017. She is a passionate advocate for housing affordability and choice, having passed one of the largest affordable housing bonds in the history of Raleigh, advocated for a dedicated one-cent property tax for affordable housing, and passed Missing Middle Housing initiatives. Her other passion is transit, and she is leading efforts to bring regional rail to the Triangle. @maryannbaldwin
David Berger is a Professor of Economics at Duke University. His research interests include Macro/Monetary, Housing, Labor, and Finance.
Andy Boenau is an independent writer, filmmaker, and mobility consultant. He has received industry awards for photography, podcasting, writing, and speaking. He served as a founding board member of MaaS America, Vice Chair of the American Planning Association’s New Urbanism Division, and Chair of the Institute of Transportation Engineers’ Transportation Planning Council. Andy’s work is published at UrbanismSpeakeasy.Com. @Boenau
Bruzenskey Bois is a real estate developer, property manager, speaker, and advocate based in Tampa, Florida. He is the co-founder of People Places Management, LLC, and manages over $12 million in real estate assets. Additionally, he is the co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus for New Urbanism and of Bois & Peters, LLC, a real estate development and consulting firm. @bruzenskey
Margaret Wallace Brown oversees Houston’s regional and community-based planning efforts, including land-development standards and neighborhood character preservation programs, including historic preservation. She also leads the strategic transportation planning and community planning efforts, including the Mayor’s signature Complete Communities Initiative. She also oversees Houston’s geographic mapping efforts. She tweets at @margwallbrown.
Payton Chung, LEED AP ND, is a developer and author who writes about the interrelated crafts that build cities: architecture, development, finance, landscape, planning, and transportation. He has written for the Urban Land Institute, Greater Greater Washington, the American Institute of Architects, Streetsblog, and the Congress for the New Urbanism. He is currently working on transit-oriented residential developments in the Triangle region of North Carolina. @paytonchung
Rick Cole is the Chief Deputy Controller at the City of Los Angeles, former Executive Director at the Congress for the New Urbanism, and an urban policy expert. Follow him on Twitter @urbanistcole.
Jason Cox is an active restaurateur and real estate developer who uses both to engage in active placemaking and revitalization. He focuses heavily on incremental development and the creation of third places that activate and contribute to the public realm. @jasoncoxnc
Thomas Dougherty is a graduate Architecture School at Notre Dame where he focused on the inner-block urbanism of traditional European and early American cities and its relevance to the incremental infill development of modern American cities - especially in light of new ADU legislation. He is the author of The American Alley and writes the Faith-Based Housing column for Southern Urbanism. @NestedUrbanism
Neil Heller is an award-winning Portland-based, Arkansas-born urban planning consultant and small-scale developer who coined the term “accessory commercial unit,” or ACU. He is the Principal at Neighborhood Workshop and a faculty member of the Incremental Development Alliance. Neighborhood Workshop employs a “pro-forma-powered planning” approach to zoning updates that quantifies the physical and financial outcomes with a focus on enabling municipal fiscal health and resident wealth-generating outcomes through small-scale development. @nbrhoodwrkshop
Eric Kronberg is a zoning whisperer. He uses his skills for good as a principal at Kronberg Urbanists + Architects, leading the firm’s pre-development efforts by combining skills in planning, development, architecture, and zoning. @EricKronberg
Aaron Lubeck, Jacobs Columnist, is a new urban builder and land planner in Durham, North Carolina. He is the author of Green Restorations: Sustainable Building in Historic Homes, and a children’s book on Accessory Dwellings entitled Heather Has Two Dwellings, and host of the National Townbuilder Association’s “Townbuilder’s Podcast”. @aaron_lubeck
Gwen McCarter Nagle is Editor-In-Chief (emeritus) of Southern Urbanism Quarterly. She has earned degrees from the University of Virginia and Harvard and has been writing or editing one thing or another forever. After a lengthy stint in brand strategy, she now enjoys helping thought leaders turn their ideas into powerful pieces of content that can have a positive impact on the world. @gwenmccarter
Jonathan Melton has served as an at-large Raleigh City Council Member since 2019. He serves as Chair of the City Council’s Economic Development & Innovation Committee and is Vice-Chair of the Transportation & Transit Committee. Council Member Melton is the first openly LGBTQ person elected citywide in Raleigh. @melton4raleigh
Dave Olverson is a budding incremental developer. During a career in marketing and licensing while living in New York City, he fell in love with the built environment. He moved to Durham, North Carolina, had three inspiring children, and earned a planning degree from the University of North Carolina. Since then, he has worked for various local developers in Durham and is building his own first project on the same block as his family’s home. @dolver
Fernando Pagés Ruiz builds non-subsidized affordable homes for a largely immigrant community. He collaborates with DPZ CoDesign on cost reduction, chairs CNU Latino, and writes for Fine Homebuilding and the Green Building Advisor. He is busy researching and writing the second edition of his bestseller Building an Affordable House with The Taunton Press.
Matthew Petty is a planner specializing in contemporary best practices for cities. He developed a novel technique called pattern zoning that pre-approves high-quality residential buildings, making sprawl repair and appropriate infill accessible. Matthew’s passion is helping communities address their housing challenges directly. He serves as a board member for the Incremental Development Alliance and served as a Council Member in Fayetteville, Arkansas, for almost 13 years, promoting data-based processes in transportation and tourism budgets. He has won grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Knight Foundation, and Walton Family Foundation. @mpetty
Dhiru Thadani, AIA | is an architect and urbanist who has taught, practiced, and worked to place architecture and urbanism in the public eye. He serves as Southern Urbanism’s chief illustrator.
Jenn Truman is a designer of experiences and places. A native North Carolinian and military brat, she now lives in Raleigh with her husband, kids, dogs, and chickens. Jenn has over a decade of professional experience in small civil engineering and architecture firms. She has a passion for local, incremental development that builds neighborhoods where folks live, work, eat, and play. @jkp_truman
Austin Tunnell is a designer, builder, masonry, and urbanist. After a brief stint as a CPA at KPMG and two years in the Peace Corps, Austin’s path into building began in the jungles of Panama, where he was first introduced to the idea that how we build shapes how we live. Captured by the idea, he went on to apprentice with a master mason and timber framer. He plans to expand Building Culture to include apprenticeship programs, R&D, manufacturing, education, and resale of traditional materials and methods—aiming to build a culture that expresses its ideals in a multi-century architecture: a whole new Building Culture. @Build_Culture
Elizabeth Ward Williams leads urban design and thought leadership efforts at Kronberg Urbanists + Architects. Trained as an architect and city planner, Elizabeth uses her unique skill set to educate on and advocate for positive changes in policy, development, and design.
