Deidre Schmidt

Full time 2007-2008

Photo by Doug Cogger

Deidre Schmidt is a developer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  She works for a small, creative firm (Brighton Development Corporation) that has almost single-handedly turned around a neighborhood near the river through a combination of renovations to historic buildings, carefully inserted new construction on vacant sites and the occasional combination of the two on a single site.  Her primary focus has been on affordable housing development.  She has worked particularly hard to create such resources in neighborhoods where the potential for gentrification could have destroyed any diversity that existed.  While she is an expert in the various forms of assistance that help create affordable housing, she is not satisfied with them and has spent the past decade working with new approaches that reduce complexity and save money. She is very interested in neighborhoods and in how new (or even substantially renovated) properties can be integrated into those places both physically and socially.  Deidre also has an interest in housing and urbanization in developing countries. As a fellow, Deidre will study urban design and architecture as well as innovative city planning strategies.