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What does the future of urban design look like? Could we eventually live in a sans-cars society? How can we transition to a reduced-personal vehicle infrastructure — for both environmental and quality of life improvements?
Urban designer and planner Victor Dover, explores these questions and more during the Wilder School annual Morton B. Gulak Lecture.
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Dover, a bicycle commuter enthusiast, recognizes that American cities are in a period of rapid change, prompting an ever-greater focus to make them livable, convenient, beautiful, enduring and environmentally responsible. He's a proponent of moving urban design to the center of decision-making for both private investors and public leaders.
But this transformation requires a strategic technological and cultural reimagining of the dominance of automobiles in our daily lives. In his talk, Dover explores new thinking about neighborhood design and street design, including the “Ten Ingredients for Car-Optional Neighborhoods.”
Dover's built-design approach focuses on neighborhood redesign in a way that places communities and neighborhoods as the centers of activity, and consequentially, doesn't require as much transportation to get there.
"There is another way of thinking about our cities that could simultaneously make us happier and healthier and also make our real estate more valuable, make our cities more efficient to to deliver municipal services, and help us build our way out of the problems," Dover says. "That way is building towns in a way that builds places where people want to be."
About the presenter
Victor Dover, FAICP, LEED-AP is an urban designer and town planner whose work spans 22 states and five continents. He is known for the designs of Glenwood Park in Atlanta, Georgia, South Main in Buena Vista, Colorado, I’On in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, as well as the downtown plans for many cities including Richmond, Virginia. He co-authored Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns (Wiley, 2014 and 2024), the leading textbook on the subject, and has been awarded both the John Nolen Medal for contributions to urbanism (2010) and the Seaside Prize (2024).
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About the Morton B. Gulak Lecture
The Wilder School brings leading experts in planning, architecture, or urban design to VCU each year through the annual Morton B. Gulak Lecture in Urban and Regional Planning.
Launched in 2013, the lecture series honors the memory of Morton B. Gulak, Ph.D., who helped found the Master in Urban and Regional Planning program more than 40 years ago.
Gulak, who passed in 2012, taught at VCU for 38 years. He inspired legions of students in the areas of urban design, urban revitalization, physical planning, and the application of professional planning methods.
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