An Original Influencer

I’m thrilled to contribute to a booklet honoring the career of urban planning Professor Susan Fainstein, an influencer extraordinare and pioneer of the Just City framework. I had the honor of taking classes with her at Columbia and we’ve remained friends ever since. The booklet is more than a celebration of her career but also a wide-ranging discussion about planning over the past fifty years. She has greatly influenced the trajectory of the field by teaching thousands of students, advising on at least 40 PhD dissertations, as well as researched and written influential books and articles. The video interview that …

Teaching at GSAPP

More than a decade after studying urban planning at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, I will be teaching a class starting Fall 2015 titled, “Communications For the Built Environment” (PLA6608) — or as I like to call it, “Write Like You Give A Damn.” Architects, urban designers and planners spend much of their time on graphics and mapping, statistical analysis and other forms of information. But few recognize the importance of writing and storytelling for winning clients, responding to RFPs, positioning a firm’s brand, creating presentations, etc. So that’s what students will learn to do in a multi-disciplinary …