Products Of The Mind: A Conversation About The Intersection Of Business + Creativity

Products of the Mind Episode 7: Howard Blackson, Urban Designer, Placemaker, and Raconteur Welcome to Episode 7 of Products of the Mind. In this episode, I interview urban designer Howard Blackson. How does he create physical environments, and what are we not seeing when we look around our cities? Howard Blackson Howard Blackson is an urban designer; but since nobody seems to know what that is, he’s happy to educate us. In this episode we get some interesting history on urban design, including the fascinating connection between the Weimar Republic (the predecessor to Germany’s Nazi regime) and Harvard’s Design School. We’ll discuss the human habitat, also known as the “built environment,” and Howard will give us insights on issues such as: How do you start the design of a new city? Where do you put the center of a town? Is suburbia sustainable? Can we replicate the 1950’s? The discussion leads us to other quite interesting topics such as: utopianism; Frederick Law Olmsted’s plan for New York’s Central Park;