Mike Lydon • Tactical Urbanism: Transform your City Today!

Mike Lydon is a Principal and Co-Founder of Street Plans, leading the firm’s New York City office. Mike is an internationally sought after planner, author, speaker, and designer of livable cities. He was named by Planetizen in 2023 as one of the 100 most influential urbanists, past or present. Mike has led more than 100 temporary and permanent street redesign projects across the United States, exerting a global influence on how people think about transforming the public realm.
Mike is also the creator and primary author of the The Open Streets Project and with his business partner, Tony Garcia, is the recipient of the 2017 Seaside Prize and co-author of the full-length book Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-term Change, which was honored by Planetizen as one of the top planning books of the decade. Mike also collaborated with Andres Duany and Jeff Speck in writing The Smart Growth Manual in 2009. Most recently, Mike co-authored NACTO’s Streets for Pandemic Response and Recovery and The Streets for Voting Guide, which help cities and boards of elections use streets and other public spaces for election activities. With John Surico, Mike and Tony are currently working on their next book, entitled Tactical Urbanism: 25 Ways to Transform Your City.
Mike Lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife and two sons, and encourages you to trade four wheels for two.

Presentation Description
Over the past decade, Tactical Urbanism has continued to evolve and grow in both scale and impact. Although commonly identified with bottom-up community activism, Tactical Urbanism is now a globally recognized methodology that's proven effective at delivering community transformation, quickly. From bike lanes to plazas, pandemic pop-ups to green infrastructure, Mike Lydon will provide a brief history of the movement and demonstrate how Tactical Urbanism's growth into an international community of practice has helped cities and citizens realize the potential of their block, streets, cities, and regions, but also has introduced new complexities and challenges that remain unsolved.