Julie Burros

Director of Cultural Planning, Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), City of Chicago

Julie Burros is the Director of Cultural Planning for the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Trained as a professional urban planner, Ms. Burros provides technical assistance to cultural organizations focused on strategic growth issues, organizational development, and space and facility development. She serves as a liaison between the arts community and regulatory City departments resolving issues with zoning, licensing, permits and building code. Ms. Burros also works on City of Chicago real estate development projects that involve the redevelopment of vacant spaces for arts uses, such as the Creative Industry District at the Cermak Road Historic District. Ms. Burros oversees operations at the Clarke House Museum. Signature projects have included the Chicago Cultural Plan 2012, the Burnham Plan Centennial Pavilions in Millennium Park in 2009; and the Cultural Landscape survey in 2002.

Ms. Burros previously worked at the City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development as a planner for central downtown and the near west side, overseeing the production and implementation of several plans and wrote and managed over a dozen requests for proposals for the redevelopment of City-owned property.

Ms. Burros did her undergraduate work at the college at the University of Chicago, majoring is sociology and did her graduate work at Columbia University at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, with a focus on planning for the built environment.

Ms. Burros is adjunct faculty at DePaul University, teaching Cultural Policy in Spring of 2013. Civic activities include service on the board of directors of the Glessner House Museum and past service as a Trustee of the Court Theater at the University of Chicago, the board of directors of the League of Chicago Theaters, the European Repertory Company, the Chicago Friends of Downtown and Women in Planning and Development. Ms. Burros has been a volunteer architecture tour docent at the Chicago Architecture Foundation since 1998.