Toronto Mayor David Miller.Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail
Former Mayor David Miller has swapped Toronto's council chambers for Brooklyn's lecture halls, accepting a teaching job at a prestigious U.S. university.
The Polytechnic Institute of New York University, the Brooklyn-based engineering wing of the esteemed American school, has named Mr. Miller its Future of Cities Global Fellow, a position that entails teaching, mapping out the institution's future and planning an international conference aimed at urban engineers.
Mr. Miller's course will deal with the murky confluence of engineering and public policy, tackling issues such as traffic, water and energy within international cities. He'll be charged with organizing conferences along similar themes, both in New York and at NYU's satellite campuses in China and Abu Dhabi.
"From my perspective, it presents the unique opportunity of being associated with one of the great universities of the world," Mr. Miller told The Globe and Mail. "There's a great need to connect engineering with the urban problems of the world. My role in this course will be to pull those themes together."
The subject matter will reflect much of Mr. Miller's experience at City Hall. As mayor, he says he was alarmed at how much was lost in translation between engineering departments and the rest of Toronto's bureaucracy.
"It's something that goes both ways: Engineers don't always understand marketers or public policy-makers, and vice versa," he said. "But I always found engineers were very receptive to removing those communication barriers."
Mr. Miller was mayor of Toronto from 2003 to 2010 and chair of the C-40 Cities Climate Leadership Group from 2008 to 2010, a role now held by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Mr. Miller decided against running for a third term to spend more time with his family. While his new gig in academe will require foreign travel, he plans to remain based in Toronto.
"My priority is my family these days," he said. "That's a complete change for me from the last 20 years when my priority was my professional life and my duty as an elected official."
He took the job outside Canada to acquaint himself with urban innovations taking place beyond domestic borders. "I'm pretty familiar with the ideas within Canada," he said. "I'll be learning too. In Canada, it's peace, order and good government and what can government do to us. In the U.S. there's much more of a tradition of citizen engagement and bringing together public and private sectors on issues."
The position adds a third job to Mr. Miller's current résumé. He recently took the role of international business and sustainability counsel at the law firm Aird & Berlis and is president of Urban Green Jobs. Rumours of his NYU appointment have been swirling for months, but the school publicly confirmed his position on Tuesday.
"We are delighted that David Miller is bringing his international expertise and leadership in city-building to NYU-Poly," its president, Jerry M. Hultin, said in a statement. "His insight will accelerate our historical mission of employing New York City as our urban laboratory in which we advance education, discovery and innovations that benefit the urban centers that are home to more than half the world's population."