As a consultant and advisor, Ed has been responsible for leading teams in planning and implementing solutions for major urban areas in the United States and overseas. He has been the major economic development consultant for Sydney, and Melbourne Australia, City of Oakland as well as cities of major jurisdictions throughout the United States. He was the primary planner and resource person for two Mayors in Oakland California. He was responsible for the major downtown revitalization plan for Oakland as well as that City's earthquake and fire recovery projects. He has extensive experience in economic development and transportation and has led the Cypress Freeway project among others.  He currently serves as an advisor to the OECD in Local Economic Development, the government of Chile in Urban Sustainable Development and state governments in the United States, Australia, Sweden and Japan. people more about this item. As a consultant and advisor, Ed has been responsible for leading teams in planning and implementing solutions for major urban areas in the United States and overseas. He has been the major economic development consultant for Sydney, and Melbourne Australia, City of Oakland as well as cities of major jurisdictions throughout the United States. He was the primary planner and resource person for two Mayors in Oakland California. He was responsible for the major downtown revitalization plan for Oakland as well as that City's earthquake and fire recovery projects. He has extensive experience in economic development and transportation and has led the Cypress Freeway project among others.  He currently serves as advisor to the OECD in Local Economic Development, the government of Chile in Urban Sustainable Development and state governments in the United States, Australia, Sweden, Chile, Italy and Japan. 

 

 

Disaster Management and Arbitration Services

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He was named by Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans in 2007 as the Mayor’s Executive Director for Recovery. His post includes coordinating all aspects of the City and Parish’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina. He reported directly to the Mayor and has coordinating responsibilities for the use of all City resources to accomplish this task

 

Ed had total responsibility for reviving the City of New Orleans which included creating new financial systems and approaches never used before in the City or the nation to create a fiscal engine for the recovery. His job entailed repositioning the city centre as a major hospital and business technology service centre (which will be the largest complex in the US south) and creatively redesigning and modernising the City’s Administration. Ed controlled over $US 10 billion in resources directly with a staff of over 200 people and a myriad of collaborating government agencies. Subsequently, Ed has worked, advised and lectured on disaster management in New Zealand, Chile, Italy, and Indonesia. He is on the advisory board of the University of Melbourne Disaster Management Masters' degree program. 

 

Public Management, International Dispute Mediation & Arbitration Services

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Blakely is a certified professional arbitrator with over 30 years of practice as an expert witness in nationally significant land use and environmental cases related to urban planing, building and disaster settlements. He has been an expert witness before US Federal courts and the chair of the West District, Sydney New South Wales urban and regional landuse and building planning panels that function like administrative law tribunals on planning and environmental issues. He was recently recognized at the UN General Assembly Habitat awards for his contribution to disaster recovery and sustainable and socially just communities in disaster recoveries globally on September 28, 2012. He is currently Professor of Urban Planning and Chair at the University of Sydney.  He also chaired  the Reference Panel for the Sydney Metropolitan Plan. He has been featured in several Australian periodical for his planning work and most recently in the Australian 2026 forecast for the nation. Prior to this post he was Dean of the Robert J. Milano Graduate  School of Management and Urban Policy, New School University   He was also Dean and Lusk Professor of Planning and Development in the School Urban Planning and Development at the University of Southern California   (1994-1999).  Previously he served as Professor and Chair of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley (1986-1994). In 2003, the University of California Riverside dedicated a new Center for Suburban Sustainable Development in honor of Professor Blakely. In 2009, he was awarded the Jay Chatterjee Service to Communities award by the American Collegiate Schools of Planning and in 2012 the same organization created the Edward J Blakely Social Justice in Community Award in his honor.

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Dr. Blakely is author of 16 books and more than 200 published articles on urban planning and development. His most recent works are: My Storm: Leading Recovery of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011); with Armando Carbonell): Resilient Coastal City Regions: Planning for Climate Change (Lincoln Institute Press, 2012): Urban Disaster Recovery Management Policy, Planning, Concepts & Cases (Crisis Response Press, 2011) along with 4 other prize winning books.