Urban Alchemy

Mindy Thompson Fullilove, MD, is an American social psychiatrist who focuses on the ways environmental factors affect the mental health of communities. She is Professor of Urban Policy and Health, Urban Policy Analysis & Management Program, Milano School for International Affairs, Management & Urban Policy, The New School. She has numerous published articles and six books, including URBAN ALCHEMY: Restoring Joy in America's Sorted-Out Cities and ROOT SHOCK: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It.

""Her [Mindy Fullilove's] baseline concern with the dignity and wisdom of individuals, as well as the absolute necessity of broad-based consensus building, puts her approach on a clear moral high ground to which every urban planner and builder ought to give greater commitment, because it's right and because it works. 'Urban Alchemy' emerges as a book because years of working to counteract the ills of urban destruction have yielded significant successes in the form of insights, relationships, spaces and even, with the help of collaborators, some buildings. Yet Dr. Fullilove's grounding in disciplines outside urban design results in a complex and multivalent work. To some degree, it is a handbook, with a nine-point instruction list for how to improve cities, starting with 'Keep the Whole City in Mind,' continuing through 'Unpuzzle the Fractured Space" and ending with "Celebrate Your Accomplishments.'"" - Charles Rosenblum (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)