2010 Jury Members
James M. DeFrancia
Jury Chair
Principal, Lowe Enterprises, Inc.
Aspen, CO
James M. DeFrancia is President of Lowe Enterprises Community Development, which provides development management and advisory services on planned communities throughout the U.S. and abroad. DeFrancia is engaged in residential, commercial and resort development. He has been involved in real estate development for more than 30 years; prior to that, he served as an officer in the US Navy.
DeFrancia is a Life Trustee of the Urban Land Institute where he has participated in or chaired more than 20 Advisory Service Panels helping communities and organizations address strategic issues of land use, development and revitalization. He is a past national director of National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), a former Virginia representative to the Southern Growth Policies Boards and a former member of the board of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. He has been a guest lecturer/panelist for the Bank Lending Institute; the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University; George Mason University and George Washington University.
DeFrancia is a graduate of the US Naval Academy, with postgraduate studies in business and finance at the University of Michigan.
Neal Peirce
CitiStatrs Group and Washington Post Writers Group
Washington, DC
Neil Peirce is a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post and chairman of The Citistates Group, America’s only journalist team focused first and foremost on metropolitan regions. With Curtis Johnson, Peirce has co-authored the Peirce Reports (now called Citistates Reports), a publication focused on compelling issues of metropolitan futures for leading media in 25 regions across the nation. Recent reports include Boston Unbound, released in May 2004, and a series on the Charlotte Citistate for The Charlotte Observer. Peirce is also a principal author of a major report on approaching global urban challenges, Century of the City: No Time to Lose, based on the Rockefeller Foundation’s 2007 Global Urban Summit in Bellagio, Italy. His 10-book series on America’s states and regions culminated in The Book of America: Inside 50 States Today and, more recently, has published Citistates: How Urban America Can Prosper in a Competitive World; Boundary Crossers: Community Leadership for a Global Age; and Breakthroughs: Recreating The American City.
Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, F.A.I.A., C.N.U.
Principal, DPZ | Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, LLC
Miami, FL
Plater-Zyberk is a founding partner of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ) with her husband, Andrés Duany. The firm has designed over 100 traditional communities built to convey a small town atmosphere and easy pedestrian access. Seaside, Florida, is one of DPZ’s most famous projects and the one said to launch the new urbanist movement. Others include Kentlands, Blount Springs, and Windsor.
She and Duany are two of the founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism (1995). DPZ’s urban redevelopment plans include those for Stuart and West Palm Beach in Florida, and Los Angeles. DPZ has also prepared municipal urban codes and traditional neighborhood district codes for municipalities throughout the United States. DPZ has received numerous awards, including two State of Florida governor’s Urban Design Awards for Excellence. With Jeff Speck and Duany, she wrote Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream (2000).
Currently a trustee of Princeton University, Plater-Zyberk has been a resident fellow at the American Academy in Rome. She is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and is currently dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Miami in Miami, where she has taught since 1979.
Deborah Ratner Salzberg
President, Forest City Washington
Washington, DC
Deborah Ratner Salzberg is president of Forest City Washington, Inc., and a director of Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises, Inc. Forest City is the chief private investor in The Yards development, planned for D.C.’s Anacostia waterfront. Based in Forest City’s Washington, D.C. office, Ratner Salzberg is responsible for both commercial and residential development in the area; also, she has worked in retail leasing, development, financing, and construction. Her current responsibilities also include asset management of commercial and residential properties. Prior to joining Forest City in 1985, she was a trial attorney in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Ratner Salzberg is associated with numerous community, charitable, and business organizations, including the American Committee of the Weizmann Institute of Science, of which she is the chairman in the Washington region; Arena Stage; D.C. Building Industry Association; Foundation for the National Archives; Jewish Federation of Greater Washington; Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies; Kenyon College; National Building Museum; and the Women’s Advisory Board of the National Girl Scouts.
Judith Rodlin
President, The Rockefeller Foundation
New York, NY
Judith Rodin became the president of the Rockefeller Foundation in 2005. From 1994-2004, she was the president of the University of Pennsylvania. She holds a PhD from Columbia University and was a faculty member at Yale for 22 years before coming to the University of Pennsylvania. Under her leadership the University doubled its research funding and tripled its annual fundraising and the size of its endowment. As president of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Rodin largely oversaw strategies credited with revitalizing the University City and West Philadelphia neighborhoods. This revitalization was the effect of the University’s increased community development, investments in local education, and an architectural reorientation that opened up the campus to the surrounding areas. Dr. Rodin serves on number of leading non-profit and corporate boards. She has authored more than 200 academic articles and chapters and has co-written eleven books. She served on President Clinton’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology and has received nine honorary doctorate degrees.