Brian Wright, CNU-A, is the Founding Principal of Town Planning & Urban Design Collaborative (TPUDC) and co-founder of Character Development (CD). For more than two decades, working with cities and developers, he has planned and designed walkable, mixed-use communities across the country, with a focus on creating enduring places rooted in the character of their natural and built environments.

Nationally recognized for his exceptional ability as a persuasive public speaker and facilitator, Brian is particularly skilled at navigating challenging and contentious community concerns. His ability to listen, build trust, ease tensions, and communicate complex issues with clarity has made him a sought-after leader in public outreach and engagement across the country. Through TPUDC’s collaborative engagement process, Brian has repeatedly brought together competing viewpoints and helped communities reach meaningful consensus where agreement once seemed impossible.

Brian leads TPUDC's work on place-based projects of all types and sizes, including regional growth and conservation plans, citywide master plans, small infill projects, and large New Urbanist communities.
Over the past several years, TPUDC has become a pioneer in the planning, design, and entitlement of Agrihoods - mixed-use communities organized around productive agriculture as a central planning and social framework. Brian brings his personal passion for growing food and sharing meals with others to this work, believing that Agrihoods offer a unique opportunity for development to honor and protect the land while creating places that serve people, strengthen community, and support the environment.

As co-founder of Character Development, Brian is putting these principles into practice at Armistead, a 200-acre Agrihood and Conservation Neighborhood just outside Nashville, where CD is the developer and TPUDC leads the planning, design, and entitlement team. The community is being shaped around sustainable placemaking, agriculture, and a deep connection to its Century Farm. The plan preserves the agricultural legacy of their partners, the Short family, who have continuously farmed the land for 140 years, while creating a place where people and nature can thrive together.

Through his work with both TPUDC and Character Development, Brian is demonstrating how thoughtful planning, design, and development can work with the land rather than against it, challenging the conventional notion that development is generally a net negative and planning communities that are enduring, connected, and deeply rooted in place.