Vitaliy
VladimirovUrban planner · storyteller · Chicago gay history

Vitaliy Vladimirov is a designer, urban planner and Chicago gay history expert who has turned a lifelong fascination with cities into walks, and videos, that thousands of people follow.

He's drawn to how cities are shaped by ideas and decisions — “both good and progressive, and also short-sighted and flat out terrible.” Joining the “Save Trumbull” campaign in 2014 pulled him into historic preservation, and he went on to earn a master's in urban planning and policy at UIC.

Before Walking Chicago, he was the city organizer of Jane's Walk Chicago, leading free, community-led walks that confront the city's troubled planning legacy and imagine a Chicago that is healthy, vibrant, and just. He's also volunteered as a docent with the Edgewater Historical Society in the neighborhood he calls home.

Today his tours and TikToks teach people to read a street the way a planner does — and to see the history the city paved over, especially its queer history.