Chicago nabs Detroit development director to run city planning

The city of Chicago has hired Maurice Cox as planning commissioner. Cox will start his term in the fall, once he leaves his current position as director of planning and development in Detroit.

According to a report in The Detroit News, Cox was appointed in 2015 and in that time he has been mandated with bettering development in Detroit’s neighborhoods and bolstering the city’s land reuse policies. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has made economic development in impoverished neighborhoods a banner of her administration, as evidenced by her recommendation for five South and West Side locations for a future Chicago casino.

In Detroit, Cox led the city’s “20-minute neighborhoods” initiative, designed to bring everyday necessities and services within reasonable walking and biking distances of all residents. His term was also marked by improving infrastructure, streets, parks and amenities as a strategy for building communities that residents would want to live in long term.

A New York native, Cox is a former associate dean of Tulane University’s School of Architecture. He also was previously a design director at the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C. and was director of the Tulane City Center, a city-based design resource center for New Orleans. From 1996 to 2004, Cox held public office as a council member and mayor for Charlottesville, Virginia.