TALKS
"The good news is, there is a future for the next generation of Detroiters, both those there now and those that want to come. ... while Detroit might not be what it was, Detroit will not die."
toni griffin • a new vision for rebuilding detroit
More Talks
University of Johannesburg • 2025
College of Communication, Architecture & The Arts • Miami, FL • 2022
Irish Architecture Foundation • Dublin, Ireland • 2021
CMU School of Architecture • Pittsburgh, PA • 2020
Community Design Center of Rochester • Rochester, NY • 2020
WeMakeThe.City Co-creation Panel • Amsterdam, Netherlands • 2018
Nelson Mandela Foundation • Johannesburg, South Africa • 2018
Washington University Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum • 2024
Center for Architecture and Metropolitan Planning • Prague • 2022
The Heinz Endowments • 2020
Design Museum of Chicago • Chicago, IL • 2020
Aging in [a] Place Symposium • Cambridge, MA • 2019
Detroit Policy Conference • Detroit, MI • 2017
Brown University • 2023
Bloomberg City Lab • 2021
CMU School of Architecture • Pittsburgh, PA • 2020
The Design School at ASU • Tempe, AZ • 2018
Institute for Quality Communities • Oklahoma City, OK • 2017
Chautauqua Institition: Creating Livable Communities • Chautauqua, NY • 2015
Public Programs
Mayors Imagining the Just City
As part of the annual Just City Mayoral Fellowship, the “Mayors Imagining the Just City” GSD public program brings speakers together to discuss strategies for using planning and design interventions to address racial injustice in cities.
Mayors Imagining the Just City: Volume 5 • 2025
Mayors Imagining the Just City, Panel 2: Just Cities, Infrastructures and the College Town • 2022
Mayors Imagining the Just City: Volume 4 • 2024
Mayors Imagining the Just City, Panel 1: Just Cities, Infrastructures and Community-Building • 2022
Mayors Imagining the Just City: Volume 3 • 2023
Mayors Imagining the Just City: Panel 1: Memory, Place Narratives and the Just City • 2022
voices
Perspectives on the Just City
Conditions of justice and injustice in our cities and communities are different depending on your life experiences. The Just City Lab's "Perspectives on the Just City" video series celebrates this diversity, by showcasing a variety of people involved in making cities great. We've asked them to share their views on pressing issues of injustice — and to invoke the values they believe will lead to a more just city.
Artist • Brandon Breaux
Scholar • Susan Fainstein
Policymaker • Nadeem Mazen
Publisher • Tau Tavengwa
Student • Mayu Takeda
planner • toni griffin
MANIFESTOS
The "Design for the Just City" course at the Harvard Graduate School of Design required students to work through several exercises that called upon them to: increase their awareness of their own cultural biases toward different groups and the social position of others; define the just city via a written and video just city manifesto; analyze possible roots and consequences of urban development policy on urban justice; develop a set of evaluation indicators and metrics to assess design’s impact on urban justice; and analyze a place or neighborhood to determine its “just-ness." The 25 student manifesto videos represent their convictions, desires, and demands for a more just city.
GSD Just City Seminar Spring 2016