Chuck Wolfe

Founder and Principal Advisor, Seeing Better Cities Group

Charles R. (Chuck) Wolfe founded Seeing Better Cities Group (SBC) in 2017 to improve the conversation around how cities grow and evolve both in the United States, the United Kingdom, and across the world. As a London-based land use consultant, urbanist writer, photographer and attorney, Chuck brings a broad spectrum of abilities and perspectives to his work at SBC. He helps developers and municipalities with policy-related issues and community involvement strategies, shares his insights and expertise as a dynamic speaker, and leads explorations of urban spaces impacted by rapid change and growth.

Chuck is the author of the award-winning Seeing the Better City and the newly revised Urbanism Without Effort, which serve as the foundation of his work at SBC. His third book, Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character: Principles and Best Practices, is forthcoming in 2020, and is anticipated in the new webpage, sustainingplace.com.

He contributes regularly to Planetizen, Governing, CityMetric, CityLab/The Atlantic Cities, The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, Grist, seattlepi.com, crosscut.com, and his blogs, sustainingplace.com and myurbanist.com.

Chuck is also a Guest Affiliate Scholar the at KTH University Royal Institute of Technology’s Centre for the Future of Places in Stockholm, Sweden, where he is leading research the role of urban character and authenticity (entitled “Cities in Context”), and an Affiliate Associate Professor in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he taught land use law at a graduate level for over 21 years in conjunction with his former, longstanding American land use and environmental law practice.

During Summer, 2018, he applied SBC principles as a Fulbright Specialist in Cairns and Townsville, Australia, as summarized in the UN-Habitat World Urban Campaign Report, available here.