Georgetown Urban & Regional Planning Program’s Post

On Friday, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Georgetown University Urban and Regional Planning (URP) program with an afternoon of thought leadership and reflections. This convening brought together the individuals, organizations, and networks who represent the extended community of practice embodied by the GeorgetownURP program.  The agenda was conducted in a conversational format that fostered a provocative dialogue between students, alumni, faculty and special guests. The afternoon ended with a call-to-action from Hon. Thomas Murphy, the three-term mayor of Pittsburgh about the role of urban planning in city leadership. We would like to thank our students, alumni, faculty, and special guests for their personal reflections and their vision for the practice of urban planning. Read about the significance of the 10-year milestone here: https://lnkd.in/e25VY7Wb ! 

URP’s very own Dion Thompson-Davoli was recently featured in the Washington Post for his amazing feat of running on every street in D.C.! Check out his incredible journey here: https://lnkd.in/ewqsuRCY.

URP is going to Germany this Fall! Please email mpsurbanplanning@georgetown.edu to register, ask questions, or to get the information session link. Don't miss this opportunity!

URP is going to Germany this Fall! Join us for an information session this Friday, June 7 at 12 pm to learn more. Please email mpsurbanplanning@georgetown.edu with any questions.

For this week's Capstone Spotlight, we would love to highlight Sooin Choi! Sooin's capstone project analyzed the community engagement process behind the East End Small Area Plan by the City of Falls Church Planning Commission. "This Small Area Plan became particularly contentious due to its perceived impact on Eden Center, a strip mall with a dense concentration of Vietnamese small businesses cherished by both immigrant and non-immigrant communities in the wider DMV area. From watching public hearing archives to interviewing all stakeholders -- including landlords, planners, small business owners, and community activists -- involved in the Small Area Plan, I analyzed the complexities and challenges surrounding planning for an immigrant "community. Doing my capstone on community engagement radically shifted how I think about what a "community" means and how to discern the nuances within a group of people with seemingly shared demographics. I believe this insight was essential when I decided to work within such a complex geography. Community engagement is challenging work and often requires urban planners to put on the hat of an anthropologist. The traditional methods of engaging with the community, whether through public hearings or surveys, are often inadequate for capturing the full array of voices, interests, and grievances within a community."

For this week's Alumni Spotlight, we would love to highlight Cynthia Cuestas! Cynthia is being recognized for being promotes to Legislative Manager at The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities. "The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA) is a non-profit organization that works to preserve and improve public and affordable housing through advocacy, research, policy analysis, and public education. In my role as a Legislative Manager, I advocate for public and affordable housing on Capitol Hill. Additionally, I inform CLPHA's membership of what is happening in Congress related to the federal budget and legislation introduced, such as the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Improvement Act." If you are an URP alumni and would like to showcase your accomplishments, please email mpsurbanplanning@georgetown.edu to be featured!

For this week's Capstone Spotlight, we would love to highlight Patricia Marrero! Patricia's capstone project explored retrofitting financial strategies within the city of Miami to reach their net zero goals by 2050. "The circumstance of how green capital is introduced into the building decarbonization space must be calibrated to offer low-performing residential buildings, usually owned by low credit rating borrowers. The leverage of green finance to fund building retrofits are securitized by local government funding. The City of Miami can reconfigure the Miami Forever Bond in a manner conducive to a broader pool of private capital. In this way, they can fund the green transformation needed to meet climate goals while including those that cannot assume additional debt to upgrade their homes. I reviewed both conventional and green financing models as they relate to buildings, compared both models at a municipal scale using Miami Forever Bond, explored how the financial vehicle needs to be different, and provided policy recommendations and innovations that local entities can implement to access green capital for residential building decarbonization efforts. The goal should be to design complementary financing strategies to transform the whole market. I argue that the circumstances of how green capital is used by local governments must be calibrated to offer low income individuals the funds needed to decarbonize buildings." If you have completed your final capstone and would like to showcase your accomplishments, please email mpsurbanplanning@georgetown.edu to be featured!

For this week's Capstone Spotlight, we would love to highlight Izzy Youngs! Izzy's capstone project utilized machine learning to propose urban technologies best suited for various eviction policy interventions. "The ability to speak on emerging technologies and their fitness for different use cases, as well as their biases, has helped me immensely in my career. There are significant limitations to using any kind of AI in policy development, namely because machine learning methods are complex mathematical problems and do not require an understanding of urban theory or creative thinking. They are designed to predict outcomes without considering the theoretical underpinnings of that outcome, which could make it replicable in another city or part of the world. We can try to add parameters to our models to capture those effects, but when a policy is rare (such as a right to counsel in tenant protection proceedings), it is difficult to measure its impact using ML. It is great to understand how emerging technologies work in a practical way, but it's also important to understand their inherent limitations in certain applications." If you have completed your final capstone and would like to showcase your accomplishments, please email mpsurbanplanning@georgetown.edu to be featured!

For this week's Alumni Spotlight, we would love to highlight Andra Roventa Smith! Andra is being recognized for having her grant to carry out a community-driven planning process for Duke Street in Alexandria, VA approved. "I've been working with the City of Alexandria's Planning & Zoning Department for almost a 18 months now. I work primarily on neighborhood plans that combines sustainable, equitable growth in areas of the City with land use, housing, transportation, and open space over a 15 - 20 year horizon. On behalf of the City, I led the work in preparing a competitive application for a transit-oriented planning grant for our next city planning effort along the anticipated Duke Street BRT corridor. The Federal Transit Administration recently announced 20 municipal recipients across the nation, and Alexandria, VA is one of them. The City has been awarded $550,000 to carry out a community-driven planning process in the next few years for Duke Street that focuses on sustainability and affordable housing, of which I'm excited to be a part of."