Great Cities Symposium’s Victor Dover highlights importance of design

Architect and city planner Victor Dover spoke to a sold-out crowd of over 350 city leaders, business leaders and civic-minded attendees at the Sixth Annual Great Cities Symposium on February 5th at the Garden Club of Jacksonville.

Photo credit: Mark Krancer

Dover is principal-in-charge and co-founder of Dover, Kohl & Partners, where he leads groundbreaking efforts in planning enduring, vibrant places and spaces, with work spanning five continents.

The annual Great Cities Symposium has emerged as a must-attend civic event that brings in speakers from peer cities to share insights on common challenges and success factors, sparking community conversations about how Jacksonville can best leverage its opportunities.

Bryan Moll, Gateway Jax CEO and presenting sponsor of the event, introduced the speaker, and JAX Chamber chair elect Abel Harding facilitated a Q&A following formal remarks.

Guests enjoyed a beautiful setting at the Garden Club for the cocktail social hour preceding Dover’s talk.

Dover gave an engaging presentation emphasizing that design is at the center of successful cities, towns and neighborhoods and that street design is the fundamental building block. He shared before and after examples of both successes and setbacks, including Jacksonville’s historic street grids and successful elements within local neighborhoods, underscoring that good design creates places people want to spend time in, raising property values and supporting better services and programs.

“We have thousands of years of examples of how to plan neighborhoods and streets that work for people,” Dover noted, pointing to cities from Paris to Charleston to neighborhoods within Jacksonville. “We know what works and what people prefer.”

Dover challenged attendees to think proactively about their city’s future. “We must visualize change before it occurs,” he said. “Strong cities don’t happen by accident. They are designed with intention, guided by patterns that ensure the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. The most important asset that any city has is the network of streets. Taxpayers pay for them and own them, and we can and should demand better.”

Attendee Fred Jones, Planning and Design Director at Haskell, reflected on the evening: “We so appreciate Scenic Jacksonville for hosting this inspiring and potentially transformative event focused on raising the bar locally for something we seem to have forgotten how to do well: designing and building great neighborhoods and truly walkable streets.”

“This program has become such a popular and engaging event for the civic community, and I’ve been honored to be a part of it, along with our hardworking committee co-chaired by Bill Hoff and Ellen Cottrill,” said Nancy Powell, executive director of Scenic Jacksonville. “We will start planning next year’s event very soon.”