Benjamin Starrett, Executive Director,
Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities (Miami, Florida)

Mr. Starrett is a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University. He lives in Miami, Florida, and presently serves as the executive director of Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities. Formed in April 1999, the Network serves as a new resource and focal point for foundations that are working to address the range of environmental, social, and economic problems that are exacerbated by the phenomena of suburban sprawl and urban disinvestment. Mr. Starrett also serves as Public Policy Director for The Growth Partnership. The Growth Partnership is a new initiative established to advance an aggressive smart growth agenda in South Florida. The Partnership is designed to foster leadership and involvement from the private and nonprofit sectors to effect positive regional and neighborhood change. The Partnership's approach focuses on improving equity and opportunity in lower income areas as a central strategy for both restoring the everglades ecosystem and accommodating South Florida's projected population growth of another 2 million people over the next two decades.

Mr. Starrett spent nearly 15 years with the Florida Department of Community Affairs, serving as its chief planning officer since 1989. While at DCA, Mr. Starrett chaired Florida's Transportation and Land Use Study Committee, helped established the Florida Sustainable Communities Network, served as state coordinator for the Eastward Ho! initiative, served on the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Working Group, helped create and staff the Governor's Commission for a Sustainable South Florida, supervised Florida's Affordable Housing Study Commission, and chaired technical advisory committees for two important DCA publications — Best Development Practices: Doing the Right Thing and Making Money at the Same Time and Transportation and Land Use Innovations: When You Cannot Build Your Way Out of Congestion.

Mr. Starrett is a member of and advisor to Leadership Florida Class XIX, the National Neighborhood Coalition, the Dade County Land Trust, the Congress for the New Urbanism, the National Smart Growth Network, the Miami River Commission's Quality of Life Committee, the Bicentennial Park Waterfront Revitalization Committee, and the Downtown Miami Transportation Task Force.