Our goal is to improve quality of life and place.
Able City is a family of professional architects, urbanists, economic developers, and designers bound together by our shared passions for making places in which people can thrive. We are driven by the desire to improve the quality of life for today’s citizens and future generations.
Our mission is to strengthen communities and cities through thoughtful design. Proximity enables people to work closely together and know how to steer their collective destinies toward common goals. Able City is contributing to the evolution of cities, towns, and places by defining quality of life as those policies and built environment that contribute to a livable community and healthy environment.
Our Story
Founded in 2018, Able City is the evolving result of two firms’ re-imagined reason-for-being within the profession of architecture. It is re-built on the foundation of the principle of “shared value,” that is; “creating economic value in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its needs and challenges.” The most pressing need for cities is to be more responsive to the aspirations of its citizens. Because a city is built by policy long before a social program is instituted or a project is commissioned and built, the challenge cities face is the institutionalizing of collaborative civic engagement.
The company’s highest purpose is to advance the potential or “ableness” of cities to meet the challenges of the time to be able to deliver a better quality of life and place, consistently and inclusively. Able City proposes that the value of its services to its clients are in developing and accelerating the quality of “ableness” in all its forms through design and strategic services for an engaged city.
City Makery
City Makery is Able City’s non-profit affiliate. The core expertise of City Makery is to help communities develop quality of life from the ground up, empowering citizens to advocate for their own diverse, equitable, accessible, livable, and sustainable cities. Through the process of implementation, they learn how to transmute a desire for a better city, through the powers of local government, and become city makers.
City Makery is the solution builder and facilitator in the development and implementation of quality of life issues that citizens bring to fruition in an expedient and inclusive way. It helps citizens define the Quality of Life issues most important to them. Through a methodical path of discovery, we help them discover a community of like-minded individuals and to coalesce in the desire to see what they want and need in their city. The organization works with city governments and other public entities to help define and implement the goals the citizens have defined for their city. By working directly with advocates, we help them to both determine solutions and define and implement policy and programs within the inherent powers of the city.