During these dynamic and turbulent times the urban landscape has become the proscenium for the critic of daily life...the backdrop for our actions and passivity towards poverty, race, and class. Of particular focus and under threat are landscapes that African Americans have inhabited during most of the 20th century...These are "black landscapes"; the built and cultural detritus that remains from a 20th century of progress that transformed black lives from rural to urban and from working class to middle class. Cities that where once cultural meccas lay fallow and undernourished during the last 35 to 40 years as we have seen an assault on social and environmental equity, public advocacy and an increase in the incarceration of young African Americans. Maurice Cox, newly appointed Planning Director for the City of Detroit is an urban designer, architectural educator and former mayor of the City of Charlottesville, VA. He most recently served as Associate Dean for Community Engagement at Tulane University, School of Architecture and Director of the Tulane City Center, a university-affiliated practice operating at the intersection of design, urban research and civic engagement throughout the New Orleans community. Cox has taught at Syracuse University, the University of Virginia and Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. His experience merging architecture, politics and design education led to his being named one of "20 Masters of Design" in 2004 by Fast Company Business Magazine. He served as Design Director of the National Endowment for the Arts from 2007-2010 where he led the NEA's Your Town Rural Institute, the Governor's Institute on Community Design, the Mayors' Institute on City Design, and oversaw direct design grants to the design community across the U.S. In 2013, Cox was named one of the Most Admired Design Educators in America in the annual ranking of DesignIntelligence