New York City Mayor de Blasio (right) appointed Mitchell Silver, AICP, as NYC Parks Commissioner in a ceremony at Seward Park on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Silver's first day of work was May 12, 2014. He has the daunting task of overseeing 1,900 parks. He has already indicated plans for new parks in the poorer areas of the five boroughs.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has named Mitchell Silver, 53, to head the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. The scope of that work is 1,900 parks covering 29,000 acres. The city sports 13 golf courses, 695 tennis courts, 14 miles of beaches and 650,000 street trees.

Silver has 25 years of planning experience, and has been the chief planning and development officer for the city of Raleigh, North Carolina since 2005. He led the city's comprehensive plan update, and was overseeing a rewrite of the city's development code.

Silver is no stranger to NYC. He attended high school in Brooklyn, and earned a bachelor's degree from Pratt Institute (NYC) and a master's degree in urban planning from Hunter College (NYC). He also worked in NYC Planning Department in the late 1980s, and for the Manhattan borough president. He was also a principal in a New York City-based planning firm, a town manager in New Jersey and deputy planning director in Washington, D.C.

Silver has taught graduate planning courses at Hunter College, Brooklyn College, Pratt Institute and North Carolina State University. He is the past president of the American Planning Association and a member of its board of directors.