Ladd Keith, Ph.D.

Blog

  • Urban Waterfront Resilience for Miami

    ULI Advisory Services Report

    The report from the Urban Land Institute Advisory Services Panel I led June 2 – 7, 2019 on increasing the resilience of Miami’s urban waterfront is now out!

    Download Full Report

    The City of Miami and the Miami Downtown Development Authority asked the Urban Land Institute to conduct an Advisory Services panel to provide recommendations for addressing waterfront resilience and mitigating the effects of sea level rise along Biscayne Bay and the Miami River. They asked us to focus on four key areas: design, finance, policy, and implementation. As a part of the five day process, the panel toured sites along the bayfront and riverfront and interviewed over 80 stakeholders. The panel came up with strategic, independent recommendations that take a holistic approach to resilience for the urban waterfront with specific recommendations around waterfront design guidelines, infrastructure finance, community engagement, and leveraging past plans and studies into actions moving forward.

    Summary of Recommendations

    • Embrace the legacy of the waterfront through design to protect from water, live with water, and create value from water.
    • Return to Miami’s history and embrace sensitive transit-oriented development (TOD) on the ridge for future growth.
    • Bring existing plans and visions together, act on strategies, and evaluate outcomes.
    • Pursue a portfolio of financial strategies to become the world leader in resilient finance, investment, and construction.
    • Reduce uncertainty for the community and private market through predictability, transparency, and accountability.
    • Incremental actions can lead to transformational changes.

  • Planning for Extreme Heat Survey

    My colleague Sara Meerow, PhD, Assistant Professor at Arizona State University, and I are studying how urban planners address extreme heat. Our goal is to survey planning professionals from a wide range of U.S. communities to better understand how extreme heat risk perceptions, current planning activities, and barriers to action vary across the country. This information will be useful for practitioners and researchers in the effort to create more extreme heat resilient communities.

    Photograph by Gregor Orbino

    This survey should only take about 10 minutes and participants will be eligible to win one of two $50 Amazon gift cards upon completing it. Please take it, share it with your urban planning colleagues, and let me know if there is a network you are a part of that we can share the survey with!

    Update: Survey closed.

  • Extreme Heat Network Webinar with Jeremy Hoffman, PhD

    Community-based participatory research campaigns to build climate resilience

    Jeremy Hoffman, PhD joined our Extreme Heat Network webinar series to discuss how community-based participatory research campaigns, known as “citizen science”, can aid in the creation of urban heat island maps and increase extreme heat resilience. He will discuss the impacts of campaigns in Richmond, VA, Baltimore, MD, Washington, D.C., and Boston, MA as case studies.

    Jeremy Hoffman, PhD is the Chief Scientist at the Science Museum of Virginia. Dr. Hoffman graduated summa cum laude and with Distinction in Geology from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, then earned his Ph.D. in Geology with a focus in Paleoclimatology at Oregon State University as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and OMSI Science Communication Fellow. After 2.5 years at the Science Museum of Virginia as their Climate & Earth Science Specialist, producing climate science educational content, he has now assumed the role of Chief Scientist.

    Sign up on our email list for future Extreme Heat Network webinars.

  • Urban Land Institute Award

    I’m honored to have received the Rising Star Award from the Urban Land Institute Advisory Services program! From ULI:

    Ladd Keith, PhD has participated in four ULI panels since 2015, most notably as Chair for both the Jacksonville, Florida panel in 2018 on transit and economic development and the urban waterfront resilience panel in Miami, Florida in 2019. Ladd was also a major contributor to ULI’s 10 Principles of Resilience publication and continues to add his expertise to a number of ULI reports.

    Photo by Laura Jensen.

    As a panelist, Ladd provides dual insight into municipal planning and resilience issues. As a panel Chair, his ability to facilitate the panel process, particularly with complex land use challenges, is a strength noted and appreciated by his fellow panelists. Ladd brings out the best in panelists and encourages each to provide their unique insight throughout the panel process. He continually keeps the broader goals of the panel in mind and is a calming presence even when long days during the panel week can ruffle any seasoned professional.

    The ULI Advisory Services Rising Star Award was created in 2015 as a tribute to newer volunteers who have provided extraordinary service on panels and demonstrated incredible enthusiasm for and commitment to the Advisory Services Panel Program.

  • What Desert Cities Can Teach Us About Water

    Central Arizona Project Canal, via Wikimedia Commons

    An interview I did with Rudri Bhatt Patel for the JSTOR Daily on sustainability in desert cities is out!

    “In many ways, Phoenix and Tucson are on the cutting edge of sustainability because they were forced to confront water scarcity decades ago. The Southwest is fertile ground to create solutions.”

    Check out the full article on water, extreme heat, and sustainability in cities in the Southwest.