Dr. Anton C. Nelessen

The Earth Day keynote presentation, Creating a More Livable Western New York, features Dr. Anton Nelessen, a national pioneer in community planning through public participation and leading expert on New Urbanism. With 38 years of experience as a teacher, author and practitioner in planning, visioning and urban design, Dr. Nelessen will emphasize ways we can improve the quality of life in our WNY communities - in a fast-paced, entertaining and provocative presentation.

With a B.A. in Architecture from the University at Minnesota and a M.A. in Design from Harvard University Dr. Nelessen has spent his career building an impressive portfolios that includes awards from around the world. His extensive experience includes downtown redevelopment plans for midtown Atlanta, Milwaukee and Cambridge, MA and new town plans for Belgium and South Africa, and a national plan for the Netherlands. He is the author of A Vision for a New American Dream - Process, Principles and an Ordinance to Plan and Design Small Communities. His work has been featured in Newsweek, Consumer Reports, numerous newspaper articles, and on public television networks.

Dr. Nelessen, one of the country's leading experts on community planning will look at the current conditions in the region and discuss how Smart Growth not only helps preserve limited environmental resources, but how it can also improve the quality of life in communities with a shrinking tax base. In a recent survey funded by the National Association of Realtors, participants ranked "quality of life" as their top reason for choosing the community where they live. How can Smart Growth improve the desirability and quality of a community and redirect the growth where it is needed? Dr. Nelessen will present examples of Smart Growth strategies that have been used around the country to create quality "communities of place". 

Dr. Nelessen has pioneered a new process of community planning that crafts each application to identify local preferences and results in an implementable Vision Plan.  The tailored community participation methodology engenders an efficient, meaningful and fun process for the entire community to participate in.  This process relies upon the expertise and involvement of local community, business and political leaders.  The final result is an accepted and coordinated document consistent with the positive aspirations and economic rational of all participants. This document is the roadmap to a new community plan.

For decades, Dr. Nelessen has been using the tools of science to pursue that most elusive and subjective quality, happiness. In a 1999 interview in Newsweek Magazine, Dr. Nelessen commented that "People have a fundamental, psychological, spiritual response to nature. If you show them recently built multifamily housing or office parks, they go negative. A small, traditional neighborhood is what people want. They just don’t know how to get it."

Dr Nelessen will offer his unique vision for our community as the keynote speaker during the 2002 Earth Day Celebration to take place in Rockwell Hall, at Buffalo State College on Friday April 26th at 7:30 PM. Admission is $5 (students are free although tickets are required) and open to the public. Dr. Nelessen’s visit is presented by the WNY Earth Day Steering Committee and the Partners for a Livable Western New York.