Principal

Joseph Minicozzi, AICP is the principal of Urban3. Prior to creating Urban3, he served as the Executive Director for the Asheville Downtown Association. Joe is an urban planner imagining new ways to think about and visualize land use, urban design and economics. Joe founded Urban3 to explain and visualize market dynamics created by tax and land use policies.

Joe holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Miami and a Master of Architecture and Urban Design from Harvard University. In 2017, Joe was recognized as one of the 100 Most Influential Urbanists of all time.

Before moving to Asheville, he was the primary administrator of the Form-Based Code for downtown West Palm Beach, Florida. Joe’s cross-training in city planning in the public and private sectors, as well as private sector real estate finance, has allowed him to develop award-winning analytic tools that have garnered national attention in Planetizen, The Wall Street Journal, Planning, New Urban News, Realtor, Atlantic Cities and the Center for Clean Air Policy’s Growing Wealthier report. Joe is a sought-after lecturer on city planning issues. His work has been featured at the Congress for New Urbanism, the American Planning Association, the International Association of Assessing Officers, and New Partners for SmartGrowth conferences as a paradigm shift for thinking about development patterns.

Joe is a founding member of the Asheville Design Center, a non-profit community design center dedicated to creating livable communities across all of Western North Carolina.