Urban Core Strategies was born in a training room in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the Spring of 2014. Then-Cambridge City Councilor Craig Kelley was attending a class on disaster preparedness for people with disabilities when he realized the teaching experts did not understand their audience. A person in a wheelchair does not need a box of food that is good for five years to be prepared for disaster. That person needs handicapped parking spaces to be kept free, for sidewalks to be passable, for elevators to work and for bathrooms to be accessible. Those are everyday "disasters" that good policy making helps avoid long before worrying about the shelf-life of packaged food.
Governments, Craig realized, need to focus on addressing issues where people live their lives. Whether it‘s addressing cybersecurity and identity theft, implementing regulatory programs to manage Ebikes and scooters or rezoning large parcels of land, too many governments and businesses start with the solutions they already know rather than searching out the relevant questions their citizens and customers want answered.
After that class, Craig got a Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he subsequently served as a Research Fellow in Municipal Resiliency and Democratic Institutions. As Chair of the City Council’s Ordinance, Public Safety and Transportation Committees, he expanded his expertise to include the emerging fields of micromobilty, Public Privacy and the intersection of Big Data and Digital Governance while also increasing his mastery of zoning, land use planning and permitting.
Post-City Council, Craig has taken his expertise to the private sector. His training as a Marine Corps infantry officer, his legal education and his widely varied personal relationships allow him to bring focused attention to any area of public policy, providing rapid and useful analysis to organizations trying to understand the often confusing interplay between public policy and private business.
Urban Core Strategies' team includes emergency response experts, data scientists, planners, content advisers and project managers. This wide breadth of experience and expertise, combined with a deep understanding of how cities function, allows Urban Core Strategies to provide unique, timely and valuable advice on public outreach and research strategies.