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This impressive public demonstration was sponsored by a unique alliance among a range of civic institutions dedicated to progress and optimism for the city's future. Led by Robert Yaro, President of the New York Regional Plan Association, the Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York has united nearly 20 public, private and non-profit organizations as collaborative champions for better urban design, architecture, and planning through active citizen engagement in the redevelopment process.

At the core of its mission, the Civic Alliance has insisted that the public have a meaningful voice in the process of decision making for the future of Ground Zero. The Civic Alliance has championed better planning and public investments to improve transportation accessibility and amenities in Lower Manhattan, and continues its critical role in helping to envision a new future for Ground Zero through thoughtful evaluation of programming concepts for the World Trade Center Memorial Museum.

On Tuesday, May 16, Mr. Yaro will present the concluding lecture in the Kansas City Design Center's annual lecture series, Transformations: Leadership for the Public Realm. The series focuses on the importance of public leadership in maintaining a city's design legacies, and the critical role of civic engagement in improving the quality of public and private decisions affecting the built environment. While in Kansas City, Mr. Yaro also will address a forum of community leaders about the role of civic collaborations in addressing difficult public issues.

The lecture and forum are made possible by the generous financial support of the Francis Family Foundation, Bank Midwest, the Benjamin Regnier Charitable Foundation, and the William T. Kemper Foundation, Commerce Bank Trustee.

About Robert Yaro

Robert D. Yaro is the President of Regional Plan Association of New York, where he has been on the staff since 1990. Headquartered in Manhattan and founded in 1922, RPA is America’s oldest and most respected independent metropolitan research and advocacy group. At RPA, he led the five-year effort to prepare RPA's Third Regional Plan, A Region at Risk, which he co-authored in 1996.

Mr. Yaro also chairs The Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York, a broad-based coalition of civic groups formed to guide redevelopment in Lower Manhattan in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. He is a director of Alliance for Regional Stewardship, and Practice Professor in City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also served on the faculties of Harvard University and Columbia University.

From 1985 to 1989 Mr. Yaro was Associate Professor of City & Regional Planning at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and founder and Director of the University's Center for Rural Massachusetts. In this role he initiated Growing Smart in Massachusetts, the nation's first smart growth initiative. His 1988 book, Dealing with Change in the Connecticut River Valley, received awards from the American Planning Association, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and other groups.

From 1976 to 1984 Mr. Yaro served as Chief Planner and then Deputy Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management. In this capacity he developed and led the state's largest urban revitalization and environmental protection programs, including the 14-city Urban Heritage State Park system. Prior to this he worked as an urban planner for the Boston Redevelopment Authority, where he worked on the City's waterfront redevelopment program.

Mr. Yaro is an honorary member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, and holds a Masters Degree in City and Regional Planning from Harvard University and a Bachelors Degree in Urban Studies from Wesleyan University.