Miami-Dade County, Florida, has created an Urban

Miami-Dade County, Florida, has created an Urban Design Center headed by new urbanists. Director Shailendra Singh worked for Correa Valle Valle architects, and principal planner Natasha Alfonso worked at Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., both new urban firms in Miami. The team, which is slated to have five members, will run charrettes to design plans for specific areas of the county. The county learned the value of charrettes through the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council based in Stuart, Florida, which has run more new urban charrettes than any other public sector agency in the last decade. Miami-Dade had contracted with Treasure Coast to come down the coast and lead charrettes — until the agency decided to set up its own studio.