Hank Dittmar

Hank Dittmar (1956–2018) was the founding principal of Hank Dittmar Associates, an international urban planning firm. Before that, he was chief executive of The Prince’s Foundation for Building Community, leading the foundation in contributing to the design of our built environment at practical and policy levels both in the UK and internationally.

Dittmar also served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Congress for the New Urbanism, the founding president and CEO of Reconnecting America, and executive director of the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership. He was appointed by President Clinton to the White House Advisory Committee on Transportation and Greenhouse Gas Emissions and the President’s Council on Sustainable Development’s Metropolitan Working Group and provided expert testimony to the United States Congress, the OECD, and the Australian government on numerous occasions.

His long, varied career included service as a regional planner, airport director, policy advisor, and outreach worker with street gangs in Chicago. He published extensively on planning, urban design, and architecture, including the 2003 Island Press book The New Transit Town: Best Practices in Transit-Oriented Development.

DIY City

The Collective Power of Small Actions

Some utopian plans have shaped our cities —from England’s New Towns and Garden Cities to the Haussmann plan for Paris and the L’Enfant plan for Washington, DC. But these grand plans are the exception, and seldom turn out as envisioned by the utopian planner. Inviting city neighborhoods are more often works of improvisation on a small scale.

My Kind of City

Collected Essays of Hank Dittmar

"Hank lived by the credo 'first listen, then design.'"
—Scott Bernstein, Founder and Chief Strategy + Innovation Officer, Center for Neighborhood Technology

Hank Dittmar was a globally recognized urban planner, advocate, and policy advisor. He wrote extensively on a wide range of topics, including architectural criticism, community planning, and transportation policy over his long and storied career.

In My Kind of City, Dittmar has organized his selected writings into ten sections with original introductions.

The New Transit Town

Best Practices In Transit-Oriented Development

Transit-oriented development (TOD) seeks to maximize access to mass transit and nonmotorized transportation with centrally located rail or bus stations surrounded by relatively high-density commercial and residential development.