Jonathan Berk
Principal/ Founder
Jonathan is a placemaker and New Urbanist in every sense of the word with a voracious appetite for studying and learning about new methods of community and economic development from around the world. Since 2016 he’s served as a Director at the Detroit based placemaking startup, Patronicity supporting over 100 community driven placemaking projects across the country. Through his work at Patronicity, Jonathan has assisted community groups in realizing some incredible public space improvement projects that have won regional and international awards.
Jonathan speaks extensively about the importance of building cities for people utilize smart growth principles and community driven placemaking to build strong, healthy, equitable and vibrant communities. He’s spoken at various regional and national conferences including ULI’s Toronto Symposium, Main Street America’s conference in Pittsburgh, the Vermont Economic Development Corporations anual Downtown’s Conference, Northern New England Planning Association Conference, numerous local and regional economic development meetings and webinars. His writing has also appeared in Banker and Tradesman, Curbed Boston and Placemakers and his quotes have appeared in a number of outlets including the Boston Globe and Curbed.
Jonathan is also trained as an attorney with experience navigating developers and placemakers through community and government relations processes to ensure a positive outcome for all parties involved (community, developer, municipality), including zoning, permitting, and other entitlements processes.
Some of Jonathan's prior professional experiences have taken him from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation working with large publicly funded infrastructure improvement projects to the City of Boston working to establish new protocols and procedures to improve and streamline the procedures for obtaining a zoning variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals and Boston Redevelopment Authority. He also served on Mayor Marty Walsh's ONEin3 Council, an organization under the Boston Redevelopment Authority which includes several programmatic elements.
Jonathan holds a BA in Journalism from Quinnipiac University, and a Juris Doctor from New England Law| Boston.
Principal/ Founder
Jonathan is a placemaker and New Urbanist in every sense of the word with a voracious appetite for studying and learning about new methods of community and economic development from around the world. Since 2016 he’s served as a Director at the Detroit based placemaking startup, Patronicity supporting over 100 community driven placemaking projects across the country. Through his work at Patronicity, Jonathan has assisted community groups in realizing some incredible public space improvement projects that have won regional and international awards.
Jonathan speaks extensively about the importance of building cities for people utilize smart growth principles and community driven placemaking to build strong, healthy, equitable and vibrant communities. He’s spoken at various regional and national conferences including ULI’s Toronto Symposium, Main Street America’s conference in Pittsburgh, the Vermont Economic Development Corporations anual Downtown’s Conference, Northern New England Planning Association Conference, numerous local and regional economic development meetings and webinars. His writing has also appeared in Banker and Tradesman, Curbed Boston and Placemakers and his quotes have appeared in a number of outlets including the Boston Globe and Curbed.
Jonathan is also trained as an attorney with experience navigating developers and placemakers through community and government relations processes to ensure a positive outcome for all parties involved (community, developer, municipality), including zoning, permitting, and other entitlements processes.
Some of Jonathan's prior professional experiences have taken him from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation working with large publicly funded infrastructure improvement projects to the City of Boston working to establish new protocols and procedures to improve and streamline the procedures for obtaining a zoning variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals and Boston Redevelopment Authority. He also served on Mayor Marty Walsh's ONEin3 Council, an organization under the Boston Redevelopment Authority which includes several programmatic elements.
Jonathan holds a BA in Journalism from Quinnipiac University, and a Juris Doctor from New England Law| Boston.