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Author, strategist, domestic and global regionalist, Marc Weiss is founder and CEO of Global Urban Development (formerly the Prague Institute), a global cities think tank with operations in Washington, D.C., Barcelona, Beijing, Prague, Singapore and Sydney. He is executive editor of Global Urban Development Magazine, vice president of the United Nations North-South Network for Urban Sustainability, and a member of the Steering Committee of the UN-Habitat’s Best Practices and Policies Program.
Weiss made his initial mark in academia, teaching and authoring books on urban development. He was tapped as a key urban policy adviser in the 1992 Clinton campaign and developed national urban policy under HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros. Subsequently Weiss activated the economic potentials of key Washington, D.C. neighborhoods, then shifted his focus to global cities and today consults as far afield as Baltimore and South Africa (though he remains active on the local scene as president of Metropolitan Investment Strategies and chairof the the Action 29 — New York Avenue Metro Station Corporation in Washington). At HUD Weiss was a key architect and senior adviser of such Clinton Administration initiatives as expanded homeownership, empowerment zones, the HOPE VI program to transform public housing, and Secretary Cisneros’ Metropolitan Economic Strategy — the first federal policy initiative focused on American urban regions and how to connect the future of inner cities with metro-wide economic prosperity. A good chunk of Weiss’ hands-on urban experience came in the late ’90s when he coordinated the strategic economic development plan for Washington as senior adviser to the director of the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, authoring The Economic Resurgence of Washington, DC: Citizens Plan for Prosperity in the 21st Century (1998). Weiss authored The Rise of the Community Builders (1987), co-authored a best-selling textbook, Real Estate Development Principles and Process (2000), and contributed to two recent books, Charter of the New Urbanism (1999) and Replicating Microfinance in the United States (2002). In recent years, Weiss coordinated a three-year initiative for the Woodrow Wilson International Center on the global future of cities and regions and served as editor of Global Outlook, an international urban policy quarterly published jointly by the Wilson Center and HUD. For many years he was associate professor of urban development, planning and preservation at Columbia University, where he also served as director of the Real Estate Development Research Center. Mark Weiss EssayFor Marc Weiss’ essay on why a metropolitan strategy is a key to both citistate and globe-wide prosperity, click here. Last updated January 3, 2007 |