As part of the Center for Architecture Presidential Lecture Series, Mindy Fullilove, MD, will discuss her forthcoming book, Main Street: How a City’s Heart Connects us All, which will be released in October of this year. She will be joined in conversation by Ron Shiffman, professor of planning at Pratt Institute.

Fullilove’s book will addresses the integral role that main streets play in the health and vibrancy of cities and the interactions of their inhabitants across racial and socioeconomic divides. Amongst other topics it discusses how architects and planners can and must play a role in creating functional main streets.

Mindy Thompson Fullilove is a social psychiatrist and professor of urban policy and health at The New School. Since 1986, she has conducted research on AIDS and other epidemics of poor communities, with a special interest in the relationship between the collapse of communities and decline in health. From her research, she has published numerous articles, book chapters, monographs, and books, including The House of Joshua: Meditations on Family and Place, RootShock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It, and Urban Alchemy: Restoring Joy in America’s Sorted-Out Cities.

A third edition of Homeboy Came to Orange: A Story of People’s Power, which she helped her father, Ernest Thompson, write, was released in May 2018. She is co-author, with Hannah L. F. Cooper, of From Enforcers to Guardians: A public health primer on ending police violence. Her forthcoming book, Main Street: How a City’s Heart Connects Us All, will be released in October 2020.