Design Arts
Imagine your community's future.
What do you dream it to be? How do you want your community to look? What kind of activities will take place? What amenities will you provide? What special places will you protect? How will you encourage civic pride? What will your great grandchildren think about your hometown? What legacy will you leave?
As an elected official, you have gained public trust. With the right tools, knowledge, and connections you can help the citizens in your hometown make their collective dreams come true.
“We Mayors exhaust ourselves with lots of decisions- political, personnel, budget. But 100 years from now, there will be no real evidence of how we made those decisions. In contrast, a decision about the physical design of a city will influence the city and its people for generations. This was my awakening: that mayors can be and should be the chief designers of their cities.”
Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley
2008-2009 Mayors' Institute applications are due July 15, 2008.
What is the Mayors' Institute?
The South Carolina Mayors' Institute was begun in 1999 as a program dedicated to enhancing the design and planning of South Carolina communities. Modeled after the national Mayors' Institute on City Design, which was inspired by Charleston Mayor Joe Riley, the SC Institute hosts an annual Colloquium organized around presentations and round table discussions. During the Colloquium, Mayors from selected communities present real projects and solicit feedback and design solutions from a resource team of community design experts. Participants are exposed to broad views on design and development through presentations made by the resource team members. The invited group is small in order to create an intimate retreat setting where ideas, issues and challenges are freely shared and discussed. Lively debate and the generation of new ideas and new perspectives are the rule. The Mayors Institute strives to reinforce and enhance the participants' influence on the physical form and economic vitality of their communities.