Santa Monica Mayor Caroline Torosis has been selected as one of eight mayors nationwide to join the 2026 Just City Mayoral Fellowship, a national leadership program of the United States Conference of Mayors and the Just City Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
The Fellowship will take place in a hybrid virtual and in-person format during Spring 2026.
The program supports mayors advancing equity-centered local projects during a time of rapid change and uncertainty. The 2026 cohort will focus on how cities can sustain a clear vision of equity, confront injustice and move real projects forward amid shifting resources, constraints and public expectations.
Over the semester-long program, mayors and senior staff will engage with national experts across architecture, urban planning, housing, public policy and design justice, using the Just City Index to examine how inequities are embedded in the social, economic and physical infrastructure of their cities.
A central theme of the 2026 Fellowship is reparative development, embedding justice and equity goals into efforts to repair historic disinvestment, restore neighborhood identity and ensure that revitalization creates opportunity without displacement. Fellows will explore how design, planning and public investment can be used as tools to heal past harm and build more inclusive cities.
Torosis was selected based on her leadership advancing equity through place-based policy and design. As Santa Monica enters a period of realignment and reinvestment, her work has focused on confronting historic displacement, protecting renters and workers, and ensuring that revitalization strengthens neighborhoods rather than pushes people out.
"Santa Monica has a proud progressive identity, but we also have a history we have to be honest about — one that includes exclusion, displacement and decisions that caused real harm," Torosis said. "This Fellowship comes at a critical moment for our city as we move from acknowledgment to action as we launch one of the largest municipal restorative justice programs in the country."
The 2026 Just City Mayoral Fellows are: Mayor Katrina Thompson of Broadview, Illinois; Mayor Barbara Buffaloe of Columbia, Missouri; Mayor Leonardo Williams of Durham, North Carolina; Mayor Mindy O'Neall of Fairbanks, Alaska; Mayor Travis Stovall of Gresham, Oregon; Mayor Sangeetha Rayapati of Moline, Illinois; Mayor Dominick Pangallo of Salem, Massachusetts; and Torosis.
The Just City Lab, led by architect and urban planner Toni L. Griffin, is housed at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. More information is available at usmayors.org and designforthejustcity.org.
Edited by SMDP Staff