Jonathan Berk

Jonathan is a placemaker, urbanist and advocate who’s focused his career on building and advocating for walkable communities with vibrant public spaces, abundant housing choices and robust local small business communities. For seven-years, Jonathan served as a Vice President at the Detroit based civic crowdfunding firm Patronicity, leading a number of state government programs supporting local placemaking initiatives in hundreds of communities, helping raise millions of dollars to support these local projects. While at Patronicity, Jonathan launched the company’s placemaking advisory firm Bench Consulting which helped communities harness the power of placemaking and tactical urbanism to navigate Covid restrictions, keeping their communities connected and local economies running. During this time he also launched Winter Places, an international placemaking challenge aimed at transforming how we approach winter by activating outdoor spaces on our main streets during the winter season. 

Jonathan currently serves on the Board of Directors of Abundant Housing Massachusetts, a non-profit advocating for housing production of all types in communities across the Commonwealth, the Planning Board for the City of Salem, Massachusetts and the advisory board of Leading Cities. Jonathan has also spoken extensively at local, national and international conferences across North America and Europe on the topics of complete communities, urbanism and placemaking. Jonathan holds a JD from New England Law | Boston and a BA in Communications from Quinnipiac University.