Melissa Meyer

Melissa is an urbanist working across research, planning policy and local government regeneration programmes, with a focus on cultural planning and infrastructure.

Melissa has developed a wide range of expertise including place-based social value, workspace planning, high streets, cultural and creative industries, social infrastructure and industrial land masterplanning. She currently leads the ‘Making Space for Culture’ team at the Greater London Authority, working to support the delivery of and access to high quality new cultural spaces across London.

Prior to this, Melissa oversaw cultural planning for the City of Boston in Massachusetts, developing cultural planning policy, securing arts and culture commitments in development projects and implementing design and operational guidance for new cultural spaces. She delivered the city’s first dedicated funding program for cultural space, granting over $1.5m to arts and culture organisations.

In previous roles, Melissa also held a first-of-its-kind role between the Mayor of London’s Social Integration and Regeneration teams. In this role she worked to strengthen social policy outcomes of urban regeneration programmes through developing evidence, measures and approaches specific to city spaces and led a large-scale, cross-departmental research inquiry into social infrastructure and social integration which proved only more urgent in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. She has also held an Associate role at We Made That, overseeing in-depth studies of places of work, local economies, creative industries, and the social value of places.