Story Bellows

Philadelphia Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics

Story Bellows joined Philadelphia city government in 2012 as co-director of the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics. The office is a civic idea and innovation incubator and research and development lab inside City Hall. Ms. Bellows also is directing Philadelphia’s efforts to engage social entrepreneurs in developing sustainable solutions to city challenges and further open government procurement to innovation through FastFWD, Philadelphia’s winning submission to the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge.

Prior to coming to Philadelphia, Ms. Bellows served as director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, a leadership initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the American Architectural Foundation and United States Conference of Mayors. An urban designer by training, she started the city-focused phase of her career in private design practice in Chicago, where she founded an interdisciplinary research group and worked with leaders in the public, private and nonprofit sectors on urban, education, healthcare, and environmental projects and initiatives.