New Orleans, Louisiana
Ann B. Daigle is a new urban designer and strategic planner specializing in humane approaches to community building. Her passion is the regeneration of historic neighborhoods and towns into characteristic, healthy, beautiful and walkable places. She happily lives and works in the great city of New Orleans where she co-hosts the CityBuilding Exchange—an intense seminar on urban economic principles and best practices dedicated to the education of elected officials and community decision-makers.
Daigle’s past posts include program manager of the New Orleans Culture of Building and Crafts Apprenticeship Program for the U.K.’s Prince’s Foundation for Building Community; and urban development manager for the city of Ventura, California. Post-Katrina she was special advisor to the Governor’s Commission and Mississippi Development Authority and worked on numerous recovery plans in Louisiana and Mississippi. A founding partner of PlaceMakers LLC, Daigle initiated the SmartCode Workshops with Andrés Duany. She is also co-owner and partner of the Company Farm Pecan Grove and Market, a family farm in North Louisiana.
Daigle adores traveling the backroads of the Mississippi Delta taking photos, haunting farmers’ markets and collecting seeds and cuttings for her garden. She also has a collection of historic cookbooks and art from Southern women artists.
Daigle received degrees from Louisiana Tech University in architecture and interior design and studied communications and social psychology at Loyola University. However, it’s the people from the Congress for the New Urbanism, whom she celebrates as mentors, who have brought the greatest insight.