The Mayors' Institute on City Design
Forum Offers Insight on Redevelopment Strategies

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Charleston, S.C. Mayor Joseph Riley at the 2002 Mayors' Institute on City Design forum. Photo: Robert Siegel, NPR News  View a gallery of photos by NPR's Robert Siegel.

The Mayors' Institute on City Design • History and guiding principles • Participants in the April 2002 forum

The challenge in St. Louis: a 22-acre area along the Mississippi River, boxed in by flood barriers, railroad trestles and an interstate freeway. Photo: Robert Siegel, NPR News

May 2, 2002 -- Joseph Riley is not your average mayor. He was elected mayor of Charleston, S.C. in 1975 and has served ever since. In the 1980s, he decided to become not merely Charleston's chief executive and chief booster, but its chief urban designer. For All Things Considered, NPR's Robert Siegel reports on how his vision is helping to transform blighted areas in other cities.

In 1985, Mayor Riley proposed an institute for mayors to attend, to increase their sophistication and interest in urban design, and one year later, the Mayors' Institute on City Design held its first forums. Groups of mayors met with architects, landscape architects, urban planners and finance experts. Over the years, hundreds of such experts have been part of this process, which is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

So have hundreds of mayors, each presenting a site that poses a problem for his city. For St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, the problem covers 22 acres along the Mississippi River. It used to be a waterside warehouse district. Now, it's mostly a sloping, vacant parking lot.

The Riverfront North site is an obstacle course for urban design, and the obstacles are many. Mayor Slay wants to see commercial and residential development at the site, but there is a tussle over which government entity will oversee planning and construction. And some business owners want more money than the city is offering to relocate.

When Slay was invited to a Mayors' Institute forum in Charleston last month, he hoped to find some solutions to move Riverfront North ahead. After Slay makes his presentation, the architects and planners are pessimistic: the area is cut off from the rest of the city by a floodwall, a railroad trestle and an interstate highway. But Riley envisions a waterfront park -- and if there must be high-rise buildings, Riley says make them slender high-rise buildings.

Slay didn't leave Charleston with a single bold new idea, but he says the forum got him thinking about using the river for recreation for the citizens of St. Louis.

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