New firm plans to bring walkability to scale

To bring walkability to more cities and towns, planner Jeff Speck has launched a new firm with Chris Dempsey, a mobility expert with, Speck says, “a history of public service and activism around planning and transit, and a born leader.”

Speck Dempsey will enable more productivity in the short term, says the author of Walkable City and Walkable City Rules. “I’ve been spending too much time organizing the jobs and doing paperwork, when I should be doing only five things: leading charrettes, making plans, lecturing, writing, and mentoring. Chris is going to allow me to do twice as much of the good stuff.”

The pair has more ambitious plans. “Soon, we would like to build a bigger firm, and, eventually, maybe even a huge one. The goal is not to build a big firm, but to bring more walkability everywhere, which may require a big firm.”

For urbanists across the US, Speck needs little introduction. His career has been mainly in the private sector, but he also served as design director for the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003 to 2007. Dempsey is well known in Massachusetts, where he served as Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and co-founded the MassDOT open-data program. A Harvard MBA, he appears regularly on Boston media speaking on transportation. He also brings policy expertise and public sector experience. 

Speck hopes the new endeavor will help transform the automobile-oriented built environment. “There are easily 5,000 cities and towns in the US that would benefit tremendously from a walkability study. I’ve done 16 of them since 2009. We see that as the largest growth market, and likely the most impactful channel for our work. In the short term, however, I have already helped build capacity in several partner firms where we do this work together, and they are bracing for more business.”