As predicted, the 4th Annual Mayor’s Symposium went off without a hitch a few short weeks ago. Speakers from Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams to chair of the U of U Department of City & Metropolitan Planning, Nan Ellin, spoke to a crowd of nearly 300 upstanding SLC citizens. Mayor Becker, away at a White House Climate Task Force meeting, delivered his clean air agenda via uber-futuristic video message.

The salty speakers touched on topics from architecture to environmentalism, but all focused on the symposium’s theme, Mountain Urbanism, Mountain Modernism. Our very own COLLECTIVE capitan, Cody Derrick, was one of the cool contributing speakers at the event, and he delivered the goods on his individual aspirations, as well as our COLLECTIVE objective. Cody spoke on the disconnect between “how we are being perceived globally, and what it is actually like to live here in Utah.” In short, most have no clue how downright grand it is to live here.

In speaking to the theme, Cody made a damn fine point: positive reinforcement is the order of the day. We feel pretty strongly that one of the ways in which we can all gain inspiration from our surroundings to build on the future of our city is simply by advocating for that which is already working. cityhomeCOLLECTIVE.com is a practice in showing it all off: design that's smashing, architecture that's stunning, and those that came before us and killed it. Look to them, we say. Take notes. Move forward.

“Because we’ve chosen to live here,” said Cody. “We have an obligation to take part in creating the city that we want to live in.” Amen, brother.