[1][7] The Lindsay administration was supportive of Elliott's work, and he was able to institute innovative programs that encouraged the government's social responsibility.

To do this, he recruited an impressive cadre of young planners and architects outside of the civil service, which meant making some bureaucratic interests very unhappy".

[5] Elliott created the Urban Design Group in 1967 with architects Jaquelin T. Robertson, Richard Weinstein, Myles Weintraub and Jonathan Barnett.

The group enhanced the aesthetics of the city, moving away from Moses' large scale disruptive projects and developed neighborhood-specific zoning plans.

[7] According to Paul Goldberger, "Donald Elliott was a realist who believed in the need to make the city more livable, and he used inventive legal tactics in trying to balance the forces at play in New York.

[12] In 1987, Elliott became a founding trustee on the board of The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum in New York, acting as Counsel and advisor.