Governing Magazine’s 1998 Public Officials of the Year

Governing Magazine’s 1998 Public Officials of the Year awards include two mayors who are dedicated proponents of the New Urbanism, John O. Norquist of Milwaukee and Nancy M. Graham of West Palm Beach. Norquist, a Congress for the New Urbanism board member, is a strong supporter of light rail transit and has plans to replace a local freeway with a boulevard and demolish a nearby interstate highway. Under Norquist, planning and neighborhood development officials have initiated numerous projects to knit the city’s torn urban fabric back together (See article on Milwaukee beginning on Page 1). After Graham was elected in 1991, she focused on a redevelopment strategy that would bring arts and entertainment to the blighted downtown area of working-class West Palm Beach. The city now has a new plaza and fountain, an amphitheater and a multicultural center. In 1996, the city bought 75 acres of land that had been cleared for a failed development project in the 1980’s; the city formed a partnership with a developer who in May broke ground on CityPlace, a $450 million, mixed-use project using a new urbanist design in West Palm Beach.