Our Mission
- Transform how our cities evolve using visual storytelling
- Encourage participation by a diversity of voices
- Promote equitable policies, plans, and decisions
Visual imagery is a powerful, necessary tool to observe and interpret cities. It sets aside academic jargon that saturates our discussions of cities, and provides a universal language for all.
Chuck WolfeHappenings
Our Services
Speaking
Chuck participates in regular speaking engagements, panels, and keynotes at events around the world. He speaks about transportation, density, affordability, public space, urban observation methods, and more. His speaking engagements are often paired with guided explorations around the host city or surrounding neighborhoods.
Explorations
The first step in improving your city is knowing what is already there. Chuck facilitates group explorations of urban spaces affected by plans, policies, or other factors like rapid growth. These explorations show how to:
- Analyze past, present, and future realities for a place
- Visually document what you observe
- Assess impacts of change
- Use images to influence decision-making
Participants use Chuck’s Urban Diary tool during these explorations to observe and document what they find.
Consulting
The Seeing Better Cities Group (SBC) team has extensive experience in land use law, urban policy and planning, and building livable cities. We help decision makers create informed plans, policies, and community involvement strategies for diverse populations, as well as provide advice on apps, platforms, and visual assessment techniques. We also collaborate with civic entrepreneurs and other placemaking innovators on urban policy and related initiatives.
Our approach is distinguished by our emphasis on visual narratives that promote inclusiveness, awareness, and diversity for everyone, not just the most powerful and privileged.
The Urban Diary Tool
The Urban Diary tool was developed by Chuck Wolfe to observe and document the cities in which we live, through photographs, sketches, or notes that catalog the influences of neighborhood dynamics, public transportation, and other elements that impact city life. The Urban Diary uses the LENS method (Look, Explore, Narrate, and Summarize) introduced by Chuck in his two books, Seeing the Better City and the newly revised Urbanism Without Effort.
Read “A Visual Tool for Guiding Urban Change”
