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The Centre for Liveable Cities Executive Director Hugh Lim led a delegation to New York, Boston, and Washington D.C. in April 2024.
The visit aimed to build institutional ties with the US Mayors’ offices, city halls and Institutions of Higher Learning and to attend the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Spring Meeting in New York city from 9 to 11 April 2024 for the purposes of networking and learning.
During the visit, the delegation met with incoming Centre for Liveable Cities Knowledge Council member Clarence Anthony, the CEO and Executive Director of the National League of Cities (NLC), an organisation representing city and town leaders from more than 2,700 cities across the United States of America, based in Washington D.C.
ED/CLC Hugh Lim and D/CLC Limin Hee, with National League of Cities CEO and Executive Director Clarence Anthony and Dr Robert Blaine senior executive & director of the Center for Leadership, Education, Advancement, and Development (LEAD).
The delegation also had good discussions with two other incoming Knowledge Council members, Rohit Aggarwal, the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and New York City’s Chief Climate Officer, Professor Rahul Mehrotra, the John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization in Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
In addition, the delegation held discussions with the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), a key agency responsible for funding and coordinating revitalization of NYC neighbourhoods, as well as Bloomberg Philanthropies in New York and the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University, to discuss potential knowledge sharing and collaboration in the city and urban planning issues. The delegation also met with the Regional Plan Association (RPA), a well-regarded planning-oriented non-profit based in New York City.
ED/CLC Hugh Lim, D/CLC Limin Hee, SAD Bert Wee, with NYCEDC Director of International Partnerships Anne Sophie Mahle (extreme left), NYCEDC Senior Vice President of Partnerships Justin Kreamer (second from right) and Deputy Commissioner Dilip Chauhan of the New York City Mayor’s Office for International Affairs.
To establish institutional ties with US City’s mayoral offices, the delegation had discussions with Edward Mermelstein, the International Affairs Commissioner of New York City, Tomas Talamante, the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs in the Washington D.C. Mayor’s Office, and James Colimon, Deputy Director of Global Affairs & Protocol in Mayor's Office of Economic Opportunity & Inclusion.
ED/CLC Hugh Lim, D/CLC Limin Hee and SAD Bert Wee, with Tomas Talamante, the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs in the Washington D.C. Mayor’s Office.
ED/CLC Hugh Lim and D/CLC Limin Hee with James Colimon, Deputy Director of Global Affairs & Protocol in Mayor's Office of Economic Opportunity & Inclusion (second from left), and Paige Roosa, Director of the Mayor’s Housing Innovation Lab (at left).
During the visit, the CLC also coordinated itineraries with the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) delegation led by Chief Urban Designer Fun Siew Leng that also attended the ULI Spring Meeting.
The CLC and URA jointly visited the revitalised Brooklyn Bridge Park and waterfront, and the redevelopment of the World War 1 era Brooklyn Army Terminal, where the NYCEDC was redeveloping hundreds of thousands of square meters of old and disused ex-US Army facilities into leasable space for a variety of uses, of which 95% is tenanted.
ED/CLC Hugh Lim, D/CLC Limin Hee and URA Chief Urban Designer Fun Siew Leng jointly visited the Brooklyn Bridge Park and waterfront.
Presentation on the NYCEDC’s plans for revitalizing Brooklyn Army Terminal and adjacent waterfronts.
Finally, the CLC delegation also studied and visited new and revitalised mixed use neighbourhoods, including Hudson Square in New York City, the Boston Seaport district, and the Wharf in Washington D.C.
The Boston Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), at the revitalized Boston Seaport district, surrounded by new apartments, hotels, and offices.
CLC would like to acknowledge and thank officials in New York City, Boston and Washing D.C. for their warm hospitality and fruitful discussions. We look forward to strengthening our ties through more knowledge sharing platforms and at key platforms such as ULI’s Spring Meeting and CLC’s World Cities Summit.