Mayoral Panel Announced for IDEAS CITY Conference, 5/1 & 2

The New Museum and the IDEAS CITY Executive Committee announced today the full line-up of mayors who will participate in a signature panel discussion that will conclude the IDEAS City Conference at 7:30 p.m. on May 2 at the Great Hall, Cooper Union. In its inaugural year, this event drew a standing-room-only audience.

IDEAS CITY is a biennial Festival in New York City with annual Global Conferences organized in key urban centers around the world. The IDEAS CITY Festival, May 1-4, includes a major Conference, participatory Workshops, an innovative StreetFest, and more than one hundred independent projects and public events opening in downtown Manhattan.

The New York Conference, May 1-2, explores the idea of Untapped Capital, this year's overarching theme, examining under-recognized and underutilized resources that can be harnessed as catalysts for change. For the IDEAS CITY Conference, a panel of current and former mayors will address this topic while considering the context of their cities within a larger national and international framework.

The City and Untapped Capital: Mayoral Panel
The Great Hall, Cooper Union
7:30 PM

The Mayoral Panel will be moderated by Kurt Andersen, writer, media icon, host/cocreator of Studio360 (the Peabody Award-winning radio program), and cofounder of the legendary Spy magazine. Andersen also moderated the inaugural Mayors Panel in 2011. Participating mayors include:
Manuel (Manny) Diaz served as Mayor of Miami, Florida from 2001-09. During his tenure, Diaz re-engineered the city's government and developed the vision of Miami as an international city. His innovative programs included such areas as urban design, sustainability, and infrastructure investment. He is author of the upcoming book Miami Transformed: Rebuilding America One Neighborhood, One City at a Time.
Christophe Girard served as Deputy Mayor of Paris, France in charge of Culture from 2001 until 2012. During his term, he created such memorable initiatives as the annual Nuit Blanche celebration. In 2012, Girard became Mayor of the 4th District of Paris. He is the former CEO for Yves Saint Laurent and Director of Strategy for LVMH.
Jim Gray is the current Mayor of Lexington, Kentucky. As former CEO of one of the nation's top ten builders of manufacturing facilities, he brings a business paradigm to city government. He is also redefining downtown Lexington as an arts and cultural district, and established a partnership with the Mayor of Louisville to create a manufacturing and technology super region.
Bill Purcell is the former Mayor of Nashville, Tennessee (1999-2007). He oversaw the city's unprecedented economic expansion. During his tenure, Nashville was ranked the number one city for corporate headquarters and twice ranked as the hottest city in America for expansion and business relocation. He has served as Director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University.
Will Wynn was elected the fiftieth Mayor of Austin, Texas, in 2003, and served two terms. With an academic background in Environmental Design, Wynn's climate protection plan for Austin is one of the country's most aggressive for reducing greenhouse gases. In addition to a successful plan for transformative change in downtown Austin, Wynn also nurtured the city's creative community with the Keep Austin Weird initiative.
"The Mayoral Panel is one of IDEAS CITY's signature events. Each mayor represents a diverse style of governance that is unique and, while they all have parallel challenges, no two have parallel solutions. Since IDEAS CITY is dedicated to the importance of culture in the cities of the future, it is important to us that each of the mayors has been a dynamic catalyst for the arts in their cities-Austin, Lexington, Nashville, Miami, and Paris," said Richard Flood, Director of Special Projects and Curator at Large, New Museum, and the lead organizer of the IDEAS CITY Conferences with Lisa Phillips, Toby Devan Lewis Director, New Museum (founder of IDEAS CITY), and Rosalie Genevro, Executive Director of the Architectural League of New York.