Jake Levitas

@civicinnovation

http://levitas.org/

I believe that cities and their people are best when they are meaningfully engaged with each other. My work creates pathways for this engagement that are creative, inspiring, and productive.

Specifically, I focus on fostering citizen-driven improvements to public spaces. I have helped coin and shape the concept of urban prototyping as a tactical complement to conventional urban planning processes.

My work has generated over 30,000 hours of civic engagement, and has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Fast Company, CityLab, The Associated Press, and other domestic and international outlets. My projects have received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Adobe Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation, American Express, and Waze, among others.

I most recently served full-time as a Mayor’s Innovation Fellow in the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Civic Innovation, where I focused on creative approaches and policies for engaging with the public realm.

I currently serve as Senior Advisor to the San Francisco Planning Department and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on the Market Street Prototyping Festival.
Previously, I served as Research Director at Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, and in the Planning Group at Arup.