Hunter Urban Policy and Planning is excited to relaunch our exchange with the Ecole d'Urbanism de Paris. A new generation of students can now study planning and policy practices from a Transatlantic perspective. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7241473324352966656

Hunter MUP grad Stephane Pierre discussed the City of Yes proposal as part of the Department of City Planning outreach effort.

Professor Nicholas Dagen Bloom spoke with Ali Bauman at CBS New York on the City of Yes initiative. New York City is playing catch-up to other progressive cities like Minneapolis by modernizing its zoning code to allow for additional market and affordable housing citywide. You can watch the segment here: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/new-york-city-affordable-housing-city-of-yes-proposal/

Adjunct Instructor Delma Palma was named a 2024 Global Exchange Fellow with Urban Design Forum. Over the next nine months, Felllows will build bridges between New York City and its peer cities, uncover cutting-edge projects and demand courageous public policy to address New York City’s housing crisis.

Professor Laura Wolf-Powers published an op-ed on City of Yes and the Adams Administration's housing policies in Crain's New York Business on July 17th.

Professor Jill Simone Gross has a new publication, "Urban Development-an ever-evolving concept - process, outcomes and method," in R. K. Vogel (Ed), Handbook of Urban Politics and Policy (pp. 355-367), Edward Elgar Publishing.

Hunter UPP alum, Kara Gurl, was featured in Crain's New York Business as one of 20 in Their 20's 2024.

Jackson Todd (Hunter College ’22) has won the Fulbright Research Scholarship for Canada. At Hunter, Jackson majored with distinction in Political Science and Urban Studies, was a Roosevelt Scholar, a Thomas Hunter Honors Scholar, a Mellon Public Humanities and Social Justice Fellow, and a Grove Fellow. Professor Laura Wolf-Powers served as his Urban Studies capstone advisor, and Professor Kenneth Erickson as his Political Science thesis advisor. Much of Jackson’s scholarly work is on various aspects of labor organizing in New York City with special emphasis on the gig economy. He has published in several newspapers and journals including The Village Voice and New York Daily News. This spring Jackson earned an M.A. in Politics from The New School for Social Research, where Victoria Hattam directed his thesis. On his Fulbright Scholarship, Jackson will spend a year at Western Ontario University studying the role of the rural-urban divide in the polarization of Canadian politics. Afterward he intends to continue his studies toward a Ph.D. in Political Science. Jackson is Hunter’s 3^rd Fulbright Scholar in 2024.

Professor Laura Wolf-Powers was quoted in a Gothamist article on June 20 about the Western Queens Community Land Trust’s Queensboro People’s Space project.

Associate Professor Stefan Al's book, Supertall, was featured in the New York Review of Books.

Prof. Nicholas Dagen Bloom provided context and support for congestion pricing in The New York Times.

Vivian Louie, a professor of Urban Policy in our department, gave a keynote last month at SUNY Stonybrook, on "Asian American Voices, Identities and Activism."

Prof. Laura Wolf-Powers will sit on a Zoom panel sponsored by the City Club about the "Economic Opportunity" element of the City of Yes proposal on Thursday, April 11 at 6:30 p.m. 

Professor Nicholas Bloom has been featured in several media outlets in the past few weeks. In Atlanta Magazine, he provided historical material and commentary on that city’s lost transit history:
https://www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/atlanta-used-to-have-extensive-public-transit-actually/

Professor John Chin was interviewed about his research on worker experiences in illicit massage businesses for an article in Urban Omnibus, a publication of the Architectural League of New York.

UPP Associate Professor Lily Pollans was featured in an article in The Guardian (February 11) about NYC composting.

An extended interview with Professor Nicholas Bloom on the NYCHA contracting scandal appeared in Curbed/New York Magazine:
https://www.curbed.com/article/nycha-bribery-corruption-federal-raid-repairs-arrests.html

The work of the students in Hunter's Fall MUP studio was featured in an article in the Commercial Observer on February 6. Professor Laura Wolf-Powers was quoted in the article.

Professor Joseph Viteritti was quoted in a Gothamist (January 30) article on Mayor Adams' dispute with the City Council which recently overrode his veto of two criminal justice bills.

UPP Associate Professor Stefan Al, a renowned teacher, scholar, and urban designer. Stefan is teaching the Site Planning Workshop and Housing and the Global City courses this spring. You can read more about Prof. Al here: https://www.hunterurban.org/faculty/stefan-al

UPP Adjunct Assistant Professor Laura Tamman published an OpEd in WBUR (Boston) about the NH primary election ( January 22, 2024) and another OpEd in City and State  (November 6, 2023) about consolidating elections.

Professor Joseph Viteritti provided concluding comments for a comprehensive essay in The Messenger  (1/1/24) summing up Mayor Erik Adams' two-year tenure and his prospects for reelection.

Professor Jill Simone Gross has been appointed the new book review editor Urban Affairs Review, a leading scholarly peer-reviewed, bi-monthly journal focused on questions of politics, governance, and public policy specifically as they relate to cities and/or their regions.

Welcome to new Associate Professor Stefan Al, a renowned teacher, scholar, and urban designer. Stefan will teach the Site Planning Workshop and Housing and the Global City courses this spring--and many more classes in the future! Read more here: https://www.hunterurban.org/faculty/stefan-al

Students in the planning and policy program this fall toured major construction projects in New York, including the Harlem River Houses renovation and the massive new housing development at Willet's Point.

A book review on New York, written by Jill S. Gross and H.V. Savitch, is published in the Journal of Urban Affairs, October 25, 2023.

Listen to the show here: https://www.upr.org/show/undisciplined/2023-06-09/undisciplined-unveiling-the-urban-oasis-how-tree-planting-combats-rising-heat-in-cities

The Spring 2023 Issue of the Urban Review is now live! This issue addresses a range of pressing issues, including housing, municipal services, economic development, and urban identity. Writers were challenged to explore these diverse topics while finding reasons to hope for a brighter future in New York. Since January 2023, a team of student contributors, editors, photographers, and graphic artists worked to put this issue together. Read and share the pieces on the Urban Review website: https://hunterurbanreview.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

Associate Professor Owen Gutfreund was quoted in a City and State article about creating more pedestrian-only streets in NYC.

Prof. Jill Gross has published a new book with Hank Savitch titled "New York (Megacities)." The book examines the New York metropolis through the lens of a series of twenty-first century pressures related to demography, economic growth, urban development, governance, immigration, leadership and globalization. It explores how New York's institutions and policies have either risen to meet these challenges, stagnated in the face of them, or simply failed to resolve them. In particular, the authors examine the municipality of New York City, as the heart of the megacity, and how it navigates the increasingly complex battles with higher levels of government over rights to the city and resource needs.

Jill S. Gross and H. V. Savitch (2023), New York,  Agenda Publishing. ISBN: 9781788212045. 

I want to share with the larger community of students, alums, affiliated faculty, and friends a decision I shared with the faculty at our April meeting: I am not seeking another term as department chair when my current term expires on June 30th so that I can complete work on a book I have been writing. I appreciate the support my colleagues have entrusted in me by electing me to five consecutive three-year terms since 2008. It has been an honor serving the extraordinary students in this department. Many whom I have gotten to know are now alums steeped in productive careers dedicated to making cities better places to live for all people. Others will soon follow. I look forward to collaborating with the next department chair, my faculty colleagues, our wonderful support staff, and our students in continuing our important work together.

Sincerely,

Joseph Viteritti

MUP student, Brianna Soleyn’s Op-Ed Taking Vacant Land And Power Back from the NYPD was published in City limits, May 3.

Associate Professor Owen Gutfreund was quoted in a City and State article about creating more pedestrian-only streets in NYC.

Professor Nicholas Bloom has published another essay on mass transit:
https://theconversation.com/low-cost-high-quality-public-transportation-will-serve-the-public-better-than-free-rides-202708

Hunter Distinguished Professor and UPP affiliated faculty member Professor Steffie Woolhandler appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, April 16, 2023.
RIP Medical Debt: Abolishing crippling health care debts

Associate Professor Laura Wolf-Powers' book University City: History, Race, and Community in the Era of the Innovation District received the Philadelphia Athenaeum Art and Architecture 2022 Book Award.

Professor Nicholas Bloom has published another essay on mass transit:
https://theconversation.com/low-cost-high-quality-public-transportation-will-serve-the-public-better-than-free-rides-202708

Hunter Distinguished Professor and UPP affiliated faculty member Professor Steffie Woolhandler appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, April 16, 2023.
RIP Medical Debt: Abolishing crippling health care debts

Associate Professor Laura Wolf-Powers' book University City: History, Race, and Community in the Era of the Innovation District received the Philadelphia Athenaeum Art and Architecture 2022 Book Award.  Prof. Wolf-Powers was also  quoted in a Bisnow article about community land trusts.

Associate Professor Laura Wolf-Powers published an op-ed piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education on February 14, based on her recently published book University City.

MS UPL alum Yudelka Tapia (2019) was sworn in as a member of the New York State Assembly for district 86 on February 5th.

MUP alum Julia Fiore (2018) was featured in City & State, February 2, 2023.

Racial Equity Reports are a new and valuable resource for developing affordable housing

Dr. Mehdi Heris was a co-author of a recently released research paper in The Lancet. The research team used Dr. Heris’ urban heat mitigation model to estimate the cooling impact of urban trees and then translated that cooling effect into public health outcomes.  The authors found that over 4% of summer mortality across 94 cities in Europe is attributable to the urban heat island effect.  The study shows that increasing tree cover can have a significant impact on people’s health, in addition to other benefits of trees.

Link to the article
Cooling cities through urban green infrastructure: a health impact assessment of European cities
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)02585-5/fulltext

Prof. John Chin's NIH-funded research on illicit massage parlors in New York City and Los Angeles was cited in a recent USA Today article on the limitations of human trafficking laws ("Human trafficking laws were supposed to help women. Victims’ stories say otherwise")

MUP alum Jeremiah Cox (2016) was featured in an article about changes to the Goshen, IN transit system.
https://www.goshennews.com/news/changes-proposed-for-goshen-s-transit-service/article_0f63cbb0-92cb-11ed-bb3c-cb13b0dbeeab.html

The Philadelphia Inquirer published an interview  with Associate Prof. Laura Wolf-Powers about her book, University City: History, Race, & Community in the Era of the Innovation District, (January 3, 2023).

A report published by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation highlighted Associate Professors Laura Wolf-Powers and Sigmund Shipp's research partnership with the Brooklyn Communities Collaborative.

https://www.kauffman.org/entrepreneurship/reports/community-engaged-entrepreneurship-research-methodologies/

Prof. Jill Simone Gross has been invited to join the editorial board of the peer review journal, Urban Affairs Review. UAR is a leading scholarly journal focused on urban politics, policy, and governance. Read more about the journal: https://journals.sagepub.com/description/UAR

Brookings Metro celebrated the release of a new book from the Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking, “Hyperlocal: Place Governance in a Fragmented World.” Prof. Jill Gross, a contributor to the book, was invited to join a  panel discussion exploring the opportunities and tensions associated with place governance, and the ways in which organizations can give stakeholders a structure to share ideas, voice concerns, advocate for investments, and co-design community improvement strategies.

The following is a link to the panel discussion on YouTube: https://www.brookings.edu/events/hyperlocal-place-governance-in-a-fragmented-world/amp/

Associate Prof. Laura Wolf-Powers presented a paper titled  "Civic mobilization and public land in West Philadelphia’s Mantua neighborhood 2013-2022" at an Urban Studies Foundation-sponsored conference at Rutgers University on September 22. The conference was titled Negotiating Social Futures: The Politics of Land Development and Value Capture During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Prof Wolf-Powers also attended a convening, "Land Value Capture in the U.S. and Canada Expert Group Meeting" at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Massachusetts on September 29 and 30.

Professor Nicholas Bloom published a new editorial on rethinking retail space in NYC:
https://www.gothamgazette.com/130-opinion/11573-reuse-vacant-retail-better-nyc-neighborhoods

https://gothamist.com/news/affordable-housing-in-one-of-nycs-most-expensive-neighborhoods-becomes-litmus-test-in-competitive-congressional-race

Assistant professor Mehdi P. Heris’s project to develop an urban heat mitigation portal for the New York City region has been funded by a $250,000 grant from NASA. This project is part of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate focused on Equity and Environmental Justice. Other co-investigators in this project are Peter Marcotullio and Andrew Reinmann from the department of Geography and Environmental Science of Hunter College and Travis Flohr from Penn State University. The NASA ROSES A.49 program is the first of its kind to encourage the use of NASA’s Earth Observation data to address environmental justice issues. Other partners in this project are the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice of NYC, Jersey City’s Department of Planning, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, and I Love Greenville of Jersey City. This project will provide a platform where local governments and advocacy groups can access heat mitigation strategies curated specifically for the planning process. Zhi Keng, Andrea Avila, Rosy George, and Annie Carforo, graduate students of Hunter College, were involved in preparing the project proposal and will continue to work on the project.

This issue offers unique insights to unite city dwellers and improve the quality of urban living. Rethinking the significance and function of edges in the urban environment, the pieces in the issue cover topics including the benefits of green infrastructure, the polarity of public restroom access, first and last mile transit options, and challenging the norm of acceptable public behavior, to list a few. Since February, an incredible team of (student) writers, editors, copy editors, peer reviewers, and visual artists worked to complete Spring 2022: Edges. Visit the Urban Review site to read and share the issue.

Associate Professor Laura Wolf-Powers published a commentary about property taxation reform in the Law & Political Economy Blog's Symposium on the De-Commodification of Urban Property.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was quoted in the New York Politico article "Clash of the New York titans: Tensions rise between onetime allies Adams and de Blasio," June 15, 2022.

MUP alum Lucy Block (2017) recently appeared on BronxNet TV to discuss her organization's 2022 Housing Risk Chart, which helps the public determine where to direct resources to stabilize communities.

Professor Nicholas Bloom provided commentary on public housing history in NYC on the NPR Podcast "Code Switch" and on recent NYCHA legislation in Albany Professor Bloom also discussed public housing with the public and members of Community Board 8 in Manhattan.

Professor Nicholas Bloom presented on affordable housing history at a May conference on "NYC's Housing Crisis" organized by the Center for Architecture. MUP graduates Moses Gates (VP, Regional Plan Association) and Ahmed Tigani (Deputy Commissioner, HPD) also presented at the conference.

Graduating urban studies major Jackson Todd's article "Los Deliveristas Unidos Takes On the App-Delivery Industry" was published in the Village Voice (May 26, 2022). The article is about organizing among food delivery workers, which is also the subject of Jackson's capstone project.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti participated in a City & State (May 24) magazine "Ask the Experts" forum on candidate prospects for the newly created Congressional District No. 10 in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

MS UPL alum Colleen O’Connor-Grant (2020) recently published an article titled "Are Urban Planners Staying Silent On Climate Gentrification?" in Shelterforce magazine, (May 9, 2022).

UPP Adjunct Associate Professor Stefan Al's book "Supertall: How the World's Tallest Buildings Are Reshaping Our Cities and Our Lives"  was recently released by W. W. Norton & Company. Stephan is giving a free online book talk, sponsored by The Skyscraper Museum, on May 17.  Click here for further details and to register.

UPP Professor Nicholas Bloom presented a Keynote Address at the Annual Conference of the National Association of Local Housing Finance Agencies at the end of last month. Prof. Bloom also released "How the Next Phase of the Second Avenue Subway Can Build a Better East Harlem," in the Gotham Gazette (April 4, 2022).

Congratulations are in order for Lily B. Pollans, who has been granted a well-deserved promotion to the rank of Associate Professor of Urban Policy and Planning effective this coming fall.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was quoted in a Gothamist article on Mayor Adams' first hundred days in office.

UPP Assistant Professor Lily Pollans was recently featured on an episode of Gastropod about food waste. Tune in for some trash talk!

UPP affiliated faculty members and CUNY Distinguished Professors Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein's article, "Medicare for All Is Not Enough" was recently published in The Nation (March 31, 2022).

Join us on Wednesday, March 30th for a discussion on New York City housing policy with two experts from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). We will discuss the work HPD does to make the city more equitable and affordable, the development of housing policy under the new mayoral administration, and the intricacies of city planning.

Moderated by Dr. Basil A. Smikle Jr, Director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Program, the program will feature Lucy Joffe, Assistant Commissioner for Housing Policy, Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and Chantella Mitchell, Executive Director of Homeownership Initiatives in the Office of Development, Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD).

The event will be Wednesday, March 30^th from 1-2pm Roosevelt House, 2nd Floor Classroom (RH 204).

RSVP here or email Bianca Oliva (bo47@hunter.cuny.edu)

Speaker Bios:

Lucy Joffe is the Assistant Commissioner for Housing Policy at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (“HPD”). In this role, she oversees HPD's Policy Development & Special Initiatives, Fair Housing Policy & Investments team and the Research & Evaluation team.

Lucy previously worked as the Executive Director of Regulatory Compliance at HPD, an attorney-advisor in the Office of General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and as a legislative aide to New York City Council Member Dan Garodnick. She also taught elementary and middle school English as a Second Language at P.S./I.S. 50 in East Harlem as a Teach for America corps member and worked in several Detroit public schools as an AmeriCorps member. Lucy earned a J.D. from the New York University School of Law, an M.S. for Teachers from Pace University and a B.A. in sociology with a political science minor from the University of Michigan.

Chantella Mitchell is the Executive Director of Homeownership Initiatives in the Office of Development at the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). In this role, Chantella manages the team that administers HPD’s preservation loan programs for 1- to 4-family homeowners, as well as HPD’s emerging development work around Community Land Trusts and zombie home acquisition strategies. Prior to her current role, Chantella’s positions in New York City service included working as a Director of Operations in the HPD Office of Development and as a Senior Analyst at the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Before joining the City, Chantella worked at several nonprofit policy and philanthropic organizations focused on economic opportunity. Chantella holds a Bachelor of Arts from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Science from Columbia University and she lives in Brooklyn with her dog, Honeybun.

Dr. Basil A. Smikle Jr. is Distinguished Lecturer and Director of the Public Policy Program at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. He was appointed by former Governor David Paterson to serve as the Executive Director of the New York State Democratic Party during the 2016 presidential cycle where he was the “second highest ranking Democrat” in the State. He holds a Ph.D. in Politics and Education and an MPA from Columbia University and received a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University.

UPP Assistant Professor Mehdi Heris’s recent paper was published in the Journal of Remote Sensing. In this paper, Prof. Heris and his co-authors assessed the accuracy of the Tree Cover layer of the National Land Cover Dataset. Many researchers use this dataset for various purposes, such as understanding how trees mitigate urban heat, improve air quality, and help with stormwater management.

The research shows that National Land Cover Dataset underestimates tree cover in cities by about nine percent. He and his co-authors also offer a new predictive model that can improve the accuracy of this dataset by about three percent. This article suggests paths forward for improving the quality of urban environmental models that require tree canopy data as key model input.

This article is open access and is available here.

Roosevelt House at Hunter College is hosting an event with Xochitl Gonzalez, New York Times bestselling author of "Olga Dies Dreaming," in conversation with Yarimar Bonilla, political anthropologist and the Director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, on Wednesday, March 9 at 6pm.

The event will take place at Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, 47-49 East 65th Street (between Madison and Park Avenues). Book signing and reception to follow. To RSVP, please click here. This event will also be streamed on Zoom.

We are pleased to announce that the Department of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College is now accepting applications for the Excelsior Fellowship program. This is a two-year fellowship program for those who have, or will have, a Master's degree by the end of Spring 2022 (i.e. graduates of the MS Urban Policy and Leadership program, the Masters of Urban Planning program, the dual degree program in Nursing Administration/Urban Policy and Leadership, the MUP/JD program graduates, and graduates of related master's programs at Hunter College).

The Excelsior Service Fellowship Program is an initiative to bring highly talented recent graduates of policy, planning, public administration, law and related graduate and professional programs into government service.  Excelsior Fellows will be placed in policy, planning and operational positions in New York State government. Excelsior Fellows start each year in early September and are placed within the Executive Chamber, a government agency or authority for a two-year fellowship. Salaries range from $60,000-$65,000 (plus full benefits) depending on experience. This year, in addition to the two seats normally made available to Hunter graduate students, the program has expanded to include the MTA, thus they will be additional placements in the field of transportation planning and policy. Note most Excelsior fellows will be based in Albany. The exception this year is that the MTA fellows are likely to be based in New York City.

Interested students, please send the following by February 24th.

• Cover letter with expressions of interest
• Resume
• Transcripts (unofficial are fine)
• Two letters of recommendation

Materials should be emailed: uppfellowshipapps2022@gmail.com.

Applications will be reviewed by faculty in the Department of Urban Policy and Planning during the first week of March. Students selected by the Hunter committee will then be interviewed by the Excelsior program between March 14-16.

For additional information please visit the Excelsior program website.

Prof. Matthew G. Lasner is featured in "All Kinds of Discrimination: Inside the Secretive World of New York Housing Co-ops" (February 8), an article about discrimination in market-rate co-ops in New York City, and the challenges of enforcing fair-housing laws, in The Guardian’s The Rent Is Too Damn High series about housing.

The Graduate Urban Policy and Planning Association (GUPPA) and the Department of Urban Policy and Planning (UPP) hosted a book talk with UPP Professor Lily Pollans last Friday discussing her new book, "Resisting Garbage: The Politics of Waste Management in American Cities." The department hosted the event in person on campus and virtually on Zoom. A recording of the event is available here.

The most recent issue of Urban Review is now online. The theme for this issue was “Pathways Forward,” exploring strategies in planning and policy to address crises facing urban spaces. Take a look at the issue here.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was quoted in a January 23 Gothamist article on "Why Eric Adams Faces a Far More Difficult Test than Previous Mayors in the War on Crime." Professor Viteritti was also interviewed on WNYC's "All Things Considered," (January 27) for a spot on a different aspect of the same Gothamist story regarding Mayor Adams and the police.

Professor Viteritti was also interviewed by the French magazine Le Point (Jan. 15) for an article profiling the new mayor.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti appeared on NY1  to discuss the upcoming inauguration of Mayor Eric Adams (December 21) and was quoted in a Gothamist article (December 18) on the upcoming inauguration. Professor Viteritti also published a short piece in an "Ask the Experts" exchange for City & State Magazine about how Mayor Bill de Blasio will be remembered (December 20). An article on Professor Viteritti's Roosevelt House interview with Mayor Bill de Blasio appeared in City & State (December 7).

Professor Lily Pollans had a piece in The Boston Globe (December 10), encouraging the city’s progressive new mayor to stop burning the city’s garbage.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti, MUP Director Nicholas Bloom, and MUP Alum Sam Stein were all quoted in a comprehensive Gothamist (December 8) article "Grading de Blasio" that covered education, housing and transportation issues.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was quoted in The Atlantic (November 3) for an article entitled "Schools Aren't the Republican Ticket to Victory."

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti's book on Mayor Bill de Blasio was quoted in the Gothamist article "Did De Blasio Make A Dent In The ‘Tale of Two Cities’? A New Analysis Of NYC Income Inequality Makes A Case," November 30.

Professor Viteritti was quoted by Agence France (November 2), a French news agency; and La Vanguardia (November 2), a Spanish publication in Barcelona on the subject of what we might expect from Mayor Eric Adams.

Professor Nicholas Dagen Bloom was quoted in City Limits article "NYCHA Leaders List Priorities for Next HUD Regional Chief, as Biden Considers Brooklyn Councilmember" and in Gothamist article "Longer NYC Commutes, Household Crowding Linked To Higher COVID-19 Rates"

Professor Nicholas Dagen Bloom interviewed housing legend Carol Lamberg for the New York Housing Conference.

Assistant Professor Lily Pollans’s book, Resisting Garbage: The Politics of Waste Management in American Cities, has just been released by the University of Texas Press. The book examines how some cities are able to defy America’s weak recycling waste regime, while most cities acquiesce to pressure to simply make waste “disappear.” Stay tuned for information about upcoming talks and events!

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was the featured guest on Phi on NY, an hour long podcast presentation of the Gotham Philosophical Society, where he discussed "Searching for the Soul of the City," a conversation based on a pair of articles he wrote in June for the Gotham Gazette drawing on materials from his Governing the City course at Hunter UPP.

Professor Nicholas Bloom presented on NYCHA history to students at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai looking into Designing Healthy Cities. He also lectured and discussed NYCHA urban design with graduate architecture students engaged in rethinking public housing at the Yale School of Architecture.

Prof. Sigmund C. Shipp was invited to be a panelist for a discussion on September 29, 2021 about the Office of the Public Advocate's newly created Racial Impact Policy.

Affiliated UPP Professors Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein's letter to the editor of the New York Times (September 27) regarding “For Democrats, Tough Options on Health Care” speaks to the current Congressional health care debates. The letter is the item after the second picture called "A False Choice on Healthcare."  (Please note that Steffie and David do not have an opinion on antibody treatments for anti-vaxxers, which the first letter on the page addresses). Their letter can be read here.

Associate Professor Laura Wolf-Powers delivered a paper at the Rutgers University-sponsored conference "Negotiating Social Futures: the politics of land development and value capture during and after the COVID-19 pandemic" on September 23.

The Consortium of Race and Gender Scholars (CORGES) invited UPP Associate Professor Karina Moreno to speak in a webinar called "Framing Racial Justice in Public Administration” which took place on September 23rd.  This webinar featured two other panelists, Brandi Blessett and Tia Gaynor, inaugural director and faculty member at the University of Cincinnati’s Master of Public Administration Program, which is currently the only NASPAA-accredited program that specializes in social equity.  The conversation was moderated by Andrea Headley (Georgetown University) and James Wright (Florida State University).

Professor Nicholas Bloom was interviewed on WNYC/Gothamist about Governor Hochul's plans for public housing.

UPP affiliated faculty member Professor Steffie Woolhandler was interviewed on NPR's Marketplace about her study on the low use of medical specialists by patients of color. The interview can be heard here (the story is at 17:00 minutes and runs for about 3.5 minutes).

Professor Jill Simone Gross’ review of Carmen Sirianni’s 2020 book Sustainable Cities in American Democracy: From Postwar Urbanism to a Civic Green New Deal (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas),  has been published in the September 2021 Issue of Perspectives on Politics, 19(3), 1005-1007.

Associate Professor Matthew Lasner discussed the origins of redlining — and its discovery by scholars — with The New York Times in “What Is Redlining?”

MUP student Colin Ryan is awarded the New York City Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD) and the New York City Housing Development Corporation (HDC) Housing Fellowship. The HPD-HDC Fellowship is a two-year  rotational program designed to expose individual Fellows to New York City government specifically in the field of affordable housing.

MS UPL alum Paola Martinez (2020) has been appointed as director of local government and legislative affairs for SUNY System. Previously, she was director of social services and community engagement for Catholic Charities at the Betances Houses in the South Bronx. She oversaw a portfolio of 41 buildings and approximately 3,000 residents, making this the largest New York City Housing Authority development, and only the second one in New York City to participate in the Rental Assistance Demonstration program.

Two of the most respected professionals in NYC Land Use & Zoning law, Raymond H. Levin and  UPP Adjunct Associate Professor Mitchell A. Korbey, discuss the changes that have occurred in Brooklyn over the past 30 years.

Herrick Does That Podcast:https://www.herrick.com/podcasts/the-changing-face-of-brooklyn/

Vivian Louie, professor of Urban Planning and Policy, recently co-published in a special issue of the Social Sciences Journal. She wrote “Divide, Divert, & Conquer” Deconstructing the Presidential Framing of White Supremacy in the COVID-19 Era with Anahi Viladrich, formerly of Hunter College, now at Queens College & The CUNY Graduate Center.

Associate Professors Laura Wolf-Powers and Sigmund C. Shipp have been awarded a three-year $294,000 community-engaged research grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to develop in collaboration with minority entrepreneurs and the Brooklyn Communities Collaborative, a supplier diversity program in Brooklyn, NY.

Professor Matthew Lasner published "Why Condos Caught On In America" in The Conversation. The article discusses the history and appeal of condominiums, a system of shared ownership which Professor Lasner refers to as a "remarkable achievement" that "allows millions of people who don’t want or need whole houses, or who can’t afford them, to live in dignity – or even luxury – in apartments of their own."

UPP affiliated faculty member Prof. Steffie Woolhandler was quoted in the U.S. News article "Patients of Color Less Likely to Get Specialist Care Than White Patients," (July 26), regarding her recent research on the racial and ethnic disparities in outpatient visit rates across 29 specialties.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was quoted in a Gotham Gazette (July 29) article on Mayor de Blasio's Commission on Racial Justice.

Professor Louie, who directs the Hunter College Asian American Studies Program & Center, was quoted in the Christian Science Monitor  ‘I need to vote.’ Why more Asian Americans are staking a political claim.

Prof. Matthew Lasner was quoted in “After Surfside, Calls for Building Oversight Grow” in The American Prospect.

SPRING program application deadline: SEPTEMBER 15th.

FALL/YEAR program application deadline: FEBRUARY 15th.

Undergrad urban studies majors who have at minimum GPA of 3.0 and have completed 60 credits can apply to the Hunter/Bartlett exchange program for a semester abroad. The Bartlett School of Planning, a part of the University College of London, is one of Europe’s most prestigious planning schools. The exchange program begins Spring 2022 and applications for the Spring term must be completed by September 15, 2021.

Undergrad majors should:

1) complete the application available on the link below and

2) let Prof. Sigmund Shipp (shipp@hunter.cuny.edu), the undergrad program director, know of their interest.

Students will pay the current Hunter tuition to study at Bartlett. The credits to be taken in London at Bartlett, which must be pre-approved by Prof. Shipp, will be counted toward the degree.

For more info please visit: http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/educationabroad/programs/semester-hunter-college-programs/semester-exchanges/england-ucl

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was quoted in a New York Post (July 8) on speculation that Public Advocate Jumaane Williams might challenge Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for governor next year.  Professor Viteritti was also quoted in The 74 (June 16) on the emergence of charter schools as an issue in the Democratic race for mayor this year.

Associate Professor Matthew Lasner published “Condo Buildings Are at Risk: So Is All Real Estate” in The Atlantic, offering his perspective on the role that condo ownership may—or may not—have played in the tragic collapse of Champlain Towers South.

Associate Professor Laura Wolf-Powers was a featured speaker at an online event sponsored on June 16 by the Urban Design Forum. Prof. Wolf-Powers discussed her research on public value recovery as an avenue by which the benefits of private real estate development might be more equitably distributed across New York City.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti has published a pair of essays on "The Soul of New York" in Gotham Gazette that are drawn from the readings in his "Governing the City" course and reflect the themes outlined in the syllabus. Click to read part 1 and part 2.

UPP affiliated faculty member Professor David Himmelstein is quoted in the Newsweek article "Concerns Mount Over Looming Surge in Bankruptcy as COVID Medical Debt Soars" (June 14, 2021), which also cites his research in the American Journal of Public Health.

MUP alum Jen Chantrtanapichate's (2019) emergency food distribution program, which she developed and launched at Sixth Street Community Center in response to the COVID19 pandemic, was featured in a short film "On the Line."

MUP alum Kyle Gorman was featured in the New York Times for his work on the Open Streets program as part of his job as Senior Program Manager at New York City Department of Transportation.

UPP affiliated faculty member Prof. Steffie Woolhandler was quoted in the NY Times article "Poor Americans More Likely to Have Respiratory Problems, Study Finds" regarding her recent research on inequalities in lung health.

Vivian Louie, professor of Urban Policy & Planning, directs the Hunter College Asian American Studies Program & Center, and has been speaking on responses to anti-Asian hate. She was featured in The Thought Project podcast, in conversation with Hunter colleague, historian Manu Bhagavan, also of the CUNY Graduate Center,  and journalist Tanya Domi, who also teaches in Hunter’s Human Rights Program. The podcast: To Stop Anti-Asian Racism, First Remedy Ignorance and Nationalism.

Louie recently moderated the panel discussion, Anti-Asian Violence in the Pandemic Age: Confronting and Curing the Virus of Hate, featuring experts and community leaders, and wrote a short commentary.  Earlier this Spring, she was quoted in Delaware Online and The Washington Post.

Assistant Professors Mehdi Heris and Lily Pollans received an Enhanced Award ($12,000) from the Professional Staff Congress-City University of New York (PSC-CUNY) Research Award Program to work on a project in collaboration with the Mayor’s Office of Resiliency. In this project, they will measure the albedo of building rooftops in New York City to evaluate the effectiveness of the City’s efforts to increase the reflectivity of building rooftops. They will also measure how cool-roof policies can mitigate urban heat island effects.

On May 10 Professor Matthew Lasner spoke in conversation with urban economist Dr. Jenny Schuetz, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, about housing policy past and present at “Ill Housed: Housing Policy for the New Deal and Today,” presented by Hunter’s Roosevelt House and the New York City chapter of Living New Deal.

Professor Owen Gutfreund is featured in the "Highways" episode of a newly-released documentary series called "Faster! Humanity's Quest to Save Time", viewable on CuriosityStream.com.

Urban Studies major Turquoise Martin has been selected to receive a $10,000 scholarship award from the Women's Forum of New York

Professor Nicholas Bloom discussed NYCHA's Blueprint for Change in the Hunts Point Express.

Rachel Albetski (MUP 2018) was quoted in this West Side Rag story about her work at the Street Plans Collaborative.

Professor Nicholas Dagen Bloom provided background and commentary in Gothamist on the revival of social housing concepts in the current mayoral campaign: https://gothamist.com/news/big-idea-dianne-morales-wants-bring-social-housing-nyc

Professor Sigmund Shipp was invited to join the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Presidential Task Force on Anti-Racism. He has accepted the invitation. The committee will convene Spring/Summer 2021.

Antonio Sieunarine (MUP 2016) was profiled on ABC 7 for his COVID work at the MTA.

On behalf of the entire faculty and staff, UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti congratulates Professor Victoria Johnson, who has received a Guggenheim Award to support her work on a book about the Hudson River artist Frederic Church, which she will be taking up while on sabbatical next year. The prestigious Guggenheim is certainly well-deserved. Professor Johnson's last book, a biography of physician David Hosack, was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize in History and a National Book Award.

In the wake of the Atlanta shootings in March 2021, Professor John Chin was interviewed by Vice and the Washington Post about his study of illicit massage parlors. His study was also cited in articles by Gothamist and the Associated Press  (AP). The two AP news articles have been picked up by numerous local and national media outlets.

Professor Nicholas Bloom will be moderating a conversation about NYCHA's future on March 31st. The event is sponsored by the New York Housing Conference: https://thenyhc.org/event/rln-presents-2021-winter-thought-leader-series-with-eva-trimble-2/

UPP Chair Professor Joseph Viteritti was featured in a public conversation at Roosevelt House (virtually) with Thomas Dyja, author of New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation on Tuesday, March 23. Dye's book had been reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review on the previous Sunday (March 21).

Associate Professor Karina Moreno's article, "Joe Biden’s Immigration Reform Doesn’t Do Enough to Help Migrant Workers" was published in Jacobin, March 1, 2021.

Profs. Jill Gross and Sigmund Shipp were invited and participated in the "Race and Class Chat" sponsored by the New York State Human Rights Commission on Friday, February 26, 2021.

Professor Victoria Johnson was featured on CNN, Pix11 News, and ABC World News Tonight this week after harnessing the power of Twitter to find the family pictured in a 1964 photo she found in a used book about 15 years ago. Professor Johnson credits Hunter MUP student Sola Olosunde with inspiring her to use Twitter to share this small piece of history.

UPP's Racial Justice Working Group has released a report summarizing the feedback shared at our community-wide town hall What Does an Anti-racist Department Look Like? The event took place November 20, 2020, and drew more than 85 students, alums, and faculty to engage with this question. The report also summarizes feedback gathered through an online questionnaire related to the event. The report can be viewed and downloaded by clicking here.

Profs. Jill Gross and Sigmund Shipp were invited and participated in the "Race and Class Chat" sponsored by the New York State Human Rights Commission on Friday, March 26, 2021.

Professor Sigmund C. Shipp gave a lecture entitled “A Charge to Keep: Historically Black Colleges and Universities in America"  to the Washington (DC) Friends Meeting (Feb 14), Cathedral Congregations, Racial Justice Task Force at the National Cathedral, Washington, DC (Feb 21), and R.C. Nusbaum Honors College, Norfolk State University, Norfolk, VA (Feb 22). His co-presenter was Professor Gregory Gardner, Norfolk State University.

Professor Nicholas Bloom contributed to a feature on NYCHA in The City. He also provided commentary on Scott Stringer's housing plan in Gothamist.

Associate Professor Laura Wolf-Powers testified on Tuesday 2/23 in favor of the City Council's new comprehensive planning legislation. One of the Council staff instrumental in devising the proposal is Hunter MUP alum Brian Paul (Spring 2011).

Prof. John Chin's report on illicit massage parlors, based on his NIH-funded study, was cited extensively in a recent article by Freedom United, an anti-trafficking organization. The article presents a cautionary tale of well-intentioned anti-trafficking efforts resulting in the criminalization of working immigrant Asian women.

Professor Viteritti was interviewed and quoted in an article in the Haitian Times (February 18) on the practice of discretionary spending by New York City Council members.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was quoted in a Village Voice article on mayoral leadership and the meaning of progressivism (February 18). UPP alum Sam Stein was quoted in the same article.

Assistant Professor Mehdi Heris is co-author of a study published in the Journal of Ecosystem Services, January 29, 2021, on the first Urban Ecosystem accounting for the U.S. The study provides the results of two models for more than 700 cities in the U.S. that quantified the amount of energy savings as the impact of urban trees as well as the value of intercepted rainfall. The research shows that American cities saved $538.6 million as the result of the cooling impacts of trees in 2016. The value of avoided runoff as the ecosystem service of urban trees was $424.7 million in 2016.

For the full article, "Piloting urban ecosystem accounting for the United States," click here.

Professor Nicholas Dagen Bloom is featured in a Gothamist/WNYC article on affordable housing debates in the current mayoral election. MUP graduates Sam Stein (Community Service Society) and Moses Gates (Regional Plan Association) also provided commentary.

A comprehensive website featuring the 2019/2020 exhibition on Housing Density at the Skyscraper Museum, co-curated by Professor Nicholas Dagen Bloom, is now available online: https://skyscraper.org/housing-density/

Professor Laura Wolf-Powers's research on urban manufacturing economies was featured in a report released by the Urban Manufacturing Alliance in December 2020. Read the full report here: https://www.urbanmfg.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/UMA-Sewn-Trades-Mfg-in-the-USA-Final.pdf

Professor Laura Wolf-Powers was quoted in a WHYY Philadelphia article, "How Black Philadelphians Lived MLK's fight for 'open housing'": https://whyy.org/articles/how-black-philadelphians-lived-mlks-fight-for-open-housing/

UPH Professor and UPP affiliated faculty member Philip Alcabes' new essay, "The Cost of Prudentialism," was published in The American Scholar, (January 16, 2021). Prof. Alcabes explains the consequences of the public health profession's abdication of its former role of social engineer.

Here are links to his prior essays on coronavirus, in case you missed them:

Race and Public Health (9/5/20)
Beyond Technical Fixes for Coronavirus (4/21/20)
Coronavirus: This is not a Plague (4/6)
Anxiety of Culpability (3/31)
Coronavirus and its Costs (3/25)
Coronavirus as Crisis (3/20)
State of Vulnerability (3/15)
How to Think About the Coronavirus (3/10)

MUP graduate students in Professor Nicholas Bloom's Fall 2020 urban planning studio analyzed underutilized office parks and strip malls to identify opportunities for new affordable housing and related transit upgrades. Their full report, developed for the Westchester County Department of Planning, is here: http://www.hunterurban.org/studio/growing-opportunity-in-westchester

Prof. Matthew Lasner and MUP student Sola Olosunde explore video as a historical medium and the impact of Olosunde’s research in a conversation published recently on PLATFORM: Found Footage of Black New York: Ten Questions for Sola Olosunde

Prof. Matthew Lasner has co-authored an editorial in PLATFORM titled “The Sixth of January” reflecting upon the horrific events at the Capitol last week.

The Peter Kwong Immigrant Workers Learning Center has recently been launched, honoring the legacy of Peter Kwong, who was a member of the Hunter faculty from 1993-2017. Kwong was a Distinguished Professor in the Urban Policy and Planning Department and a Professor of Asian American Studies. He had a passionate commitment to issues of social justice and the rights of immigrant workers and a long record of activism concerning conditions in the Asian American community. The Peter Kwong Immigrant Workers Learning Center is located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and strives to advance justice and meaningful change to immigrant workers, youth and veterans of justice struggles. For more information, consult its website.

Avi Garelick, MUP student, and Andrew Schustek, MSUPL student, have published an article “The Rise and Fall of the Coops” in a special issue of Jewish Currents magazine focused on housing. They also spoke about the article last month on an episode, “Coop Dreams,” of the podcast Nostalgia Trap. The special issue also includes pieces by department alums Jenny Akchin, Samuel Stein, and Oksana Mironova.

Venesa Alicea, a MUP student who is also a practicing architect and adjunct assistant professor of architecture at City College, worked with Dark Matter University, a new, collaborative BIPOC-led group, this fall to co-teach a course (remotely) at Tuskegee University. Read about her work in Architects Newspaper.

Luis Gallo, former MUP/MSUA student, has been reporting for NPR, StoryCorps, Vice and more for the past eight years. Recent stories include “The Remarkable Rebirth of Medellín” on PRX’s program Latino USA.

UPP Chair Professor Joseph Viteritti has written an essay on the NYC 2021 Mayoral Race for City Limits Magazine.

UPH Distinguished Professor and UPP affiliated faculty member Stephanie Woolhandler was interviewed on Democracy Now," Amid SCOTUS Fight over ACA, Advocates Say Medicare for All Remains Best Way to Expand Healthcare," November 11, 2020.

UPP Associate Professor Laura Wolf-Powers is co-author of a powerful new report that illuminates the ways that land use practice in NYC lets value slip away:
https://prattcenter.net/uploads/800008/1603900108692/Our_Hidden_Treasure_Final_10-28-20.pdf

UPH Distinguished Professors and UPP affiliated faculty members Stephanie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein's recent research on the rise of uninsurance in the Trump era is covered in the Healthline article "In Trump’s First 3 Years, 2 Million Americans Lost Healthcare, Thousands Died Prematurely," November 3, 2020.

UPP Chair Prof. Joseph Viteritti was a guest on CUNY Forum (October 28) where he participated in a panel discussion moderated by Bob Liff on the forthcoming New York City Mayoral Election of 2021. The other panelists were John Banks (Real Estate Board of New York), Jeffery Mays (New York Times), and Debralee Santos (Manhattan Times) The show is available on CUNY TV.

MS UPL student, Violet Moss is included in the Manhattan Power 50 list of most influential unelected New Yorkers. Violet is an expert on healthcare policy and government relations. She has directed policy and advocacy for prominent organizations such as the Fund for Modern Courts, the Children’s Health Fund, and the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York Presbyterian.

Other individuals on the list include Hunter College President Jennifer Raab, former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Founder and President of the National Action Network the Rev. Al Sharpton.

UPH Professor and UPP affiliated faculty member Steffie Woolhandler was on BBC discussing COVID-19 and the US healthcare system, (October 11, 2020).

Click for BBC Clip. (Prof. Woolhandler's discussion starts after 42 minutes or thereabouts)

Associate Professor Owen Gutfreund was featured on CNA (an international news channel based in Singapore), in a story about the reallocation of NYC street space during the pandemic, and the brewing conflict between restaurants and ride-hail drivers over sidewalk access.

UPH Professor and UPP affiliated faculty member Philip Alcabes' short piece "Coronavirus and the Withering of the Public Sphere" was published in The American Scholar, (September 19, 2020). The entire piece pertains to questions of policymaking in the current milieu.

Professor Nicholas Dagen Bloom has been busy on the public housing front. He has provided support and feedback on groundbreaking urban design work underway designed to make NYCHA's public housing developments better places to live:

1) A co-authored editorial in The New York Daily News: "The Rebirth NYCHA Needs Now"
2) Comments on landscape innovations as part of the NYCHA Connected Communities initiative:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pa9m5p9x6trarpq/Masterplan%20debrief_Agenda.pdf?dl=0
3) Comments on NYCHA landscape improvements as part of a feature in Le Monde (France):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yo0ljh90i0ewocu/Papier_Lillian_Wald%20%282%29.pdf?dl=0

In response to systemic racial injustice, the need to reaffirm UPP’s commitment to anti-racist practices, and the specific concerns of many in the UPP community, including students, alums, and faculty, around departmental priorities, procedures, and pedagogy, department chair Prof. Joseph P. Viteritti, in consultation with the department’s governing body (the Personnel and Budget Committee, whose members include the directors of UPP’s three degree programs), the full faculty, and GUAPA, has established a Racial Justice Working Group, comprising five full-time faculty, two students, and two alums.

The faculty serving on the Working Group are Professors John Chin (chair), Matthew Lasner, Karina Moreno, Lily Pollans, and Sigmund Shipp. The student members are Hafizah Omar (MSUPL student) and Lorrayne (Lola) Vieira-Sullivan (MUP student and GUAPA officer). The alums are Dr. Calvin T. Brown (MUP 2002), Assistant Commissioner for Neighborhood Development at the New York City Department of Small Business Services, and Amina Hassen (MUP 2016), Senior Urban Planner at WXY Studio.

The Working Group, which will convene throughout the 2020-21 academic year and issue periodic updates, will serve as a hub for conversations among the faculty, between the faculty and students and alums, and between all UPP stakeholders and the college around urgent issues including recruitment of BIPOC students and instructors, the needs of BIPOC students, and program curricula.

The Working Group’s efforts complement those already underway by Hunter College’s Presidential Task Force to Advance Racial Equity. This Task Force was appointed over the summer by President Jennifer Raab to effect college-wide improvements in recruitment and admissions, curriculum, anti-racism training, and student support and pipeline programs, and to host public programs, such as the ongoing Speaking of Justice series. Two UPP faculty, Professors Vivian Louie and Sigmund Shipp, also serve on this Task Force, along with two UPP alums, Dr. Calvin T. Brown and Caitlin Ho (MSUPL 2016), Program Director for HCAP: the Hunter College AANAPISI Project.

The department has created the Racial Justice Working Group in acknowledgment of the critical need to achieve equity in the department, college, fields of urban policy and planning, and the wider community.

Prof. Victoria Johnson's review of a new book about animal welfare policy in New York City and the founding of the ASPCA was published online in The New York Times Book Review, September 16, 2020. It will appear in the print edition on Sunday, September 20.

Prof. John Chin and the Hunter College AANAPISI Project (HCAP) team were awarded two minority-serving institution (MSI) grants through the US Department of Education's Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISI) program. The two new grants represent $3.5 million in funding over a 5-year period. Hunter College was the only school east of Illinois to compete successfully for the funding and the only school in the US to receive two grants. Prof. Chin will serve as the Principal Investigator (PI) on the project, working with Prof. Paul McPherron (English) as Co-PI, and Caitlin Ho (MSUPL, 2016) as the HCAP Program Director. HCAP collaborates closely with Hunter's Asian American Studies Program and Center, led by UPP Prof. Vivian Louie. The two grants will fund programs that help high-need Asian American and Native Pacific Islander students succeed in college, particularly targeting students who come from low-income and immigrant families, have limited English proficiency, or are first-generation college goers (Asian/Pacific Islander students have the highest rate of first-generation college attendance among all ethnic/racial groups at Hunter College).

Professor Nicholas Bloom discussed public housing in New York as part of an extensive radio feature that aired in August on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/cruise-ships-in-the-sky-the-story-of-public-housing-high-rise/12573734

UPH Professor and affiliated UPP faculty member Philip Alcabes' essay" Race and Public Health: The coronavirus reveals how this country fails to relieve suffering" was published in The American Scholar magazine, September 5, 2020.

NASPAA, the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration — the global standard in public service education — has officially announced that it has accredited our MSUPL program. Click to read more.

The American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) New York City Chapter has named Assistant Professor Karina Moreno President-Elect for 2020-2021 and President for 2021-2022.

MUP student Sola Olosunde unearthed video footage of white children taunting Black children in Rosedale, Queens, in 1975. After sharing the clip on social media, the New York Times spent months investigating, tracking several of the victims. The Times published its report in June crediting Sola in a separate, second article about the investigation.

This week, Olosunde is featured in, “He’s Sharing the Historical past of Black New York, One Tweet at a Time,”  New York Times, August 12, 2020.

In addition, Prof. Louie's two most recent articles "The Discriminatory Impact of COVID-19" and "Why Ethnic Studies is Pivotal Today" were published online.

MUP student Conor Greene is awarded the 2020 Westchester Municipal Planning Federation (WMPF) scholarship

Associate Professor Laura Wolf-Powers was quoted in an article in the Real Deal, about a proposed new subsidy for owners of rent-regulated apartments in NYC.

On July 14th Graduate NYC announced the release of The State of College Readiness and Degree Completion in New York City. This report examines the progress that the NYC DOE and CUNY have made toward their respective goals of high school graduation and college readiness and degree completion since 2010, while also detailing comprehensive policy changes currently underway at CUNY. The report was made possible by a network of talented and dedicated colleagues, including Carrie Torres, MS UPL alum (2019).  Carrie started working on this report in Spring 2019 as a Graduate Fellow responsible for data analysis and policy research.

MUP alum Amina Hassen (2018) is featured in the Fast Company article, "NYC’s new Black Lives Matter mural is more than art. It’s the future of urbanism"

UPH Professor and UPP Affiliated faculty member, Philip Alcabes, published a short piece in The American Scholar. The article links the shabby coronavirus response in the US to the continuing policy assault on the minority poor.

Hunter MUP alum Felicia Park-Rogers, Director of Regional Infrastructure Projects for Tri-State Transportation Campaign (TSTC), co-authored the organization's latest report, "Back on Board: A Guide to Safe(r) Transit in the Era of COVID," which provides a suite of over 50 interventions to promote a safer transit environment for riders and workers alike. Prof. John Chin served as an advisor on the report and participated in TSTC's press conference on June 17. The report has been covered in a variety of national and regional media outlets, including, The New York Daily News, Government Technology, Smart Cities Dive, The World Journal, and The NJ Star-Ledger.

MUP student Sola Olosunde unearthed video footage of white children taunting Black children in Rosedale, Queens, in 1975. After sharing the clip on social media, the New York Times spent months investigating, tracking several of the victims. The Times published its report this week, crediting Sola in a separate, second article about the investigation.

Prof. Sigmund Shipp has co-signed a response by Black planning faculty across the country to ACSP’s Statement Following the Killing of George Floyd. Read ACSP’s statement and Prof. Shipp’s response here.

Prof. Matthew Lasner has co-authored an editorial, Power to Witness, calling upon those who study the built environment, globally, to bear witness to racialized injustices and other systemic assaults on BIPOC and the right to peacefully protest.

UPP Alum Oriade Harbor (MS 2017) is quoted in a New York Times article on "How Black Police Officers Really Feel About the Floyd Protesters."

Police Officer Harbor, a transgender black man, notes that even though he often speaks out against what he sees as social injustice, when he does police work he is still seen as "part of the system that is oppressive to black people."

He further commented, "people treat me different in uniform, because they only see the uniform." He added, "At the end of the day I am a black person who dons a blue uniform. I am a trans male. I walk in all these words."

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced this week that she is appointing UPP alum Angela Tovar (MUP, 2011) Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of Chicago. Selected on the basis of a national search, the mayor's press release refers to Tovar's "unique policy skill set focused on racial equity, deep community relationships across the city and a demonstrated track record of combining environmental justice, public health and inclusive economic growth."

Prof. Lily Baum Pollans’s Environmental Justice class was awarded the ACSP/Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Award for Curriculum Innovation

Professor Jill Simone Gross has been selected for induction into the Distinguished Service Honor Roll of the Urban Affairs Association (UAA). The Honor Roll recognizes the UAA's "most impactful service leaders." Prof. Gross has been recognized for her efforts to expand the Associations "international" relationships, build a "global urban research community," and "substantively contribute to the strong foundations upon which the Association stands today, and by which it will be sustained in the future."

UPP Prof. Vivian Louie's opinion piece "Asian-American studies, more vital than ever: Coronavirus is a moment we should be learning" was published in the Daily News, May 19, 2019.

UPH Professor and UPP affiliated faculty member Philip Alcabes' most recent public-health-oriented article, Beyond Technical Fixes for Coronavirus, was published in The American Scholar, May 7, 2020.

Here are links to his prior essays, in case you missed them:
Coronavirus: This is not a Plague (4/6)
Anxiety of Culpability (3/31)
Coronavirus and its Costs (3/25)
Coronavirus as Crisis (3/20)
State of Vulnerability (3/15)
How to Think About the Coronavirus (3/10)

Associate Professor Laura Wolf-Powers has been named to the editorial board of the Journal of the American Planning Association.

St. Peter's University Professor and former UPP adjunct faculty member and MUP alum Philip Plotch's book, "Last Subway: The Long Wait for the Next Train in New York City" was recently released by Cornell University Press.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti is the author of, "Lessons from the Pandemic: The Coronavirus Crashes a New York City History Course," Gotham Gazette, April 17, 2020.

Prof. Nicholas Dagen Bloom's article, Upstate Summer Camps for City Kids: Start Planning Now, was published in the Gotham Gazette (April 13, 2020). It was also featured on Politico New York: https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/newsletters/politico-new-york-education/2020/04/14/50-doe-coronavirus-deaths-334031

2016 Urban Planning alum Shannon Jordy has learned many lessons working in racial economic justice the past few years. Some of those lessons she's shared with the transportation field in a new op-ed on equity for Next City.

Associate Professor Laura Wolf-Powers had an article published in the online journal PLATFORM, titled "Recovering Land Value to Advance Equity: Gowanus, Brooklyn as a Case in Point."

Associate Professor  Laura Wolf-Powers was a featured speaker at an event sponsored by the Urban Design Forum on January 24th. The event explored the process that led to consensus around the rezoning of East Midtown in 2017 and addressed its applicability in other contexts.

Prof. Nicholas Dagen Bloom authored two editorials in the Gotham Gazette: "Hidden in Plain Sight: Billions in Potential Revenue for NYCHA," ( December 2, 2019), and  "NYCHA Open Space: The Next City Park Frontier," (December 19, 2019). Prof. Bloom was also cited in the Next City article "New York’s Public Housing Development Dreams at a Crossroads," (December 18, 2019).

Associate Prof. Owen Gutfreund was interviewed by CNA (a TV news station in Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Phillipines, Malaysia, and Australia) for a story about recent efforts of cities to regulate AIRbnb.  Click here for a video of the interview.

Prof. Wolf-Powers is  a co-author of a report recently published by the Pratt Center for Community Development: "Public Action, Public Value: Investing in a just and equitable Gowanus neighborhood rezoning."

Associate Professor Laura Wolf-Powers' Op-Ed, "New York City Needs a Development Reset -- Starting with Public Land," appeared in the Gotham Gazette on December 9th.

UPP affiliated faculty member and Hunter College Distinguished Professor David Himmelstein was quoted in The Washington Post article, "How a fight over health care entangled Elizabeth Warren — and reshaped the Democratic presidential race," November 30, 2019.

Prof. John Chin and his colleague Prof. Lois Takahashi (USC) have published a report on "Illicit Massage Parlors in Los Angeles County and New York City: Stories from Women Workers". This report, intended for a policy and practitioner audience, examines the experiences of Chinese and Korean immigrant women working in illicit massage parlors. Often lost in media accounts are the daily experiences of the women workers from their own perspectives. Why are women working in these establishments and under what conditions do they labor? What solutions can be offered that do not further penalize, traumatize, or victimize an already vulnerable population? This report aims to answer some of these questions, and offer recommendations for policy and practice, based on in-depth interviews with 116 women. The report is particularly timely in light of decriminalization legislation currently being debated in New York State.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was quoted in City & State magazine (November 8, 2019) for an article on "Which Promises Will de Blasio Leave Unkept?"

Congratulations to Professor Edwin Melendez for receiving the Edward Blakely Award, given by the Planners of Color Interest Group (POCIG) of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP). The award recognizes planning or related academics or professionals who have supported the cause of social justice for communities of color in their work.

Congratulations to Associate Professor Victoria Johnson for receiving the Hunter College Presidential Award for Excellence in Scholarship.

Distinguished Professors David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler are the authors of "The Public Option Poison Pill", in The Nation, (October 21, 2019) on the issue of Medicare for All. Professors Himmelstein and Woolhandler, affiliated faculty members in our department, are cofounders of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Professor Nicholas Dagen Bloom provides background on NYCHA history on WNBC's new podcast, Question Authority, about problems at the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). A video introduction to the series with Bloom is here: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/on-air/as-seen-on/Question-Authority-A-Deep-Dive-Into-NYCHA-Problems_New-York-563169282.html. Most of the interview, recorded last summer, can be found in Section 6 of the podcast: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/investigations/NYCHA-Question-Authority-podcast-episode-6-interview-gregory-russ-561139601.html

Assistant Professor Lily Baum Pollans' article, “Sustainability policy paradox: Coping with changing environmental priorities in municipal waste management” was recently published in the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning.

Professor Nicholas Dagen Bloom discussed "Diversity and Inclusion in Planning" with Maria Torres Springer (VP for US Programs, Ford Foundation) and Rohit T. Aggarwala (Head of Urban Systems, Sidewalk Labs) at the Regional Plan Association Board of Directors Retreat on October 3.

Prof. Lasner was also quoted in the New York Times in an article, “A Roof of One’s Own," about use of tiny houses as affordable housing around the United States.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti has published an "open letter to Mayor de Blasio" in the New York Daily News (September 20) on "What he should do now that his presidential ambitions have run aground."

Professor Nicholas Dagen Bloom's new book How States Shaped Postwar America: State Government and Urban Policy (University of Chicago Press, 2019) is positively reviewed in Planning Magazine (American Planning Association):

“Bloom provides a needed reminder of how significant state governments were to urban development and planning in the mid-twentieth century. . . . The moral of the many stories is that in today's political climate, urban Americans may again need to look to state governments.” Choice (American Association of Research Libraries) rates the book “Highly recommended. . . Bloom’s carefully crafted work persuasively shows that without the intervention of states, large public systems in fields such as education, transportation, housing, and the environment might not exist or would be unrecognizable today.”

Professors Nicholas Bloom gives a tour of the Housing Density Show at the Skyscraper Museum to staff from the NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development, September 17, 2019.

The Department of Urban Policy and Planning was one of several programs featured in a Forbes magazine article on schools that provide practical career training.

Professor Nicholas Dagen Bloom is Co-Curator of an exhibition on HOUSING DENSITY at the Skyscraper Museum in Battery Park City. He has already given exhibition tours to senior staff from HPD, DCP, and the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development. The exhibition will remain on view until December 2019. Bloom welcomes the opportunity to give additional group tours for agencies and other interested organizations. Please contact him directly at nb2907@hunter.cuny.edu. More information about the show is available here: https://www.skyscraper.org/housingdensity/

Assoc. Professor Laura Wolf-Powers co-authored an article that recently appeared in the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, titled "Opportunities and Risks of Localized Industrial Policy: The case of 'maker-entrepreneurial ecosystems' in the USA." (August 20, 2019)

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was quoted in Politico (August 19) magazine in an article on "After the Likely Demise of deBlasio's Campaign, What Comes Next?"

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti appears in an educational video released this week by the New York City Charter Revision Commission commemorating the Thirtieth Anniversary of the historic 1989 Charter Commission. The video is posted on the Commission Website and is being distributed on Facebook and Twitter. Click here for the video.

Professor John Chin was quoted in an article, in CityLab concerning a New York State bill that would decriminalize sex work:
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/06/sex-work-justice-police-decriminalization-harris-new-york-legal/591526/

Assistant Professor Lily Baum Pollans' article, "From non-planning to cutting edge policy: the transformation of waste management in Boston since the 1980s," was published in Metropolitics journal, June 11, 2019.

Prof Laura Wolf-Powers published an article in Metropolitics journal, “Reclaim Value Capture for Equitable Development”, May 28, 2019.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti participated in an "Ask the Experts" Q&A for City and State magazine (May 22) on "Predicting the Impact of de Blasio's White House Bid."

He was also quoted in other venues on the subject of de Blasio's presidential campaign, including Fortune magazine (May 16), the Wall Street Journal (May 16), and Gothamist (May 15).

Associate Professor Lynn McCormick has an upcoming article in the Journal of Planning Education and Research on Housing for People with Disabilities. Written with Prof. Alex Schwartz at the New School and Chiara Passerini, she argues that planners need to pay attention to the impending housing crisis facing adults with disabilities who face an insufficient supply of affordable and accessible units country-wide. Click here for the article.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was quoted in a Fortune magazine story on, "How New York Could Become a Factor in the 2020 Presidential Race," (May 7, 2019).

Associate Professor Victoria Johnson was quoted in The New York Times article "Rockefeller Center Digs Up", (May 5, 2019).

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti is writing a series of articles on the New York City Charter for City Limits magazine, as a panel appointed by the mayor, public advocate, comptroller, borough presidents and city council is conducting the most comprehensive review and revision of the document undertaken in thirty years.

Part 1: Charter Debate is a Moment for NYC to Change—or Confirm—its Identity
https://citylimits.org/2019/04/03/opinion-charter-debate-is-a-moment-for-nyc-to-change-or-confirm-its-identity/

Part 2: Commission Must Tweak—Rather Than Transform—the Balance of Power in NYC
https://citylimits.org/2019/04/04/opinion-commission-must-tweak-rather-than-transform-the-balance-of-power-in-nyc/

Part 3: A Stronger New York Does Not Need a Weaker Mayor
https://citylimits.org/2019/04/05/opinion-a-stronger-new-york-does-not-need-a-weaker-mayor/

Part 4: Is the Charter Revision Commission Looking at the Wrong Campaign Reforms?
https://citylimits.org/2019/04/12/nyc-charter-term-limits-not-irv/

Associate Professor Victoria Johnson's book American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine inthe Garden of the Early Republic was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in American History.

Associate Professor Laura Wolf-Powers' co-authored article, Industrial inheritances: Makers, relatedness and materiality in New York and Chicago is published in the journal Regional Studies.

Prof. Sigmund Shipp was a panelist on the CUNY-TV forum "How Much is Too Much"? That focused on Amazon's decision to withdraw its proposed location in Long Island City. The show was taped March 27, 2019.

The APA Divisions Council has recently announced the winners of its 2019 Grant Awards. Profs. Sigmund Shipp and Jeffrey Lowe (Associate Prof at Texas Southern University) were awardees. Their research project entitled, "The First Generation of Black Planners Speak Their Truths" focuses on the first black professional planners and their work in major cities as they were changing from being largely white to largely African-American.

Associate Professor Victoria Johnson's book American Eden has been nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the biography category.  https://www.latimes.com/books/la-et-jc-la-times-book-prize-finalists-20190220-story.html

A Chinese translation of UPP Chair and Professor Joseph Viteritti's book, Choosing Equality, has been published by Guangxi Normal University Press in China. The book, Choosing Equality: School Choice, the Constitution, and Civil Society was originally published by the Brookings Institution Press twenty years ago this year and has a new preface. The new edition is the second in a special series of five books by American authors on the subject of school reform in America being translated under the editorial direction of Chinese scholars at Beijing Normal University in Beijing and East China Normal University in Shanghai. The other American authors are on the faculties of UC, Berkeley; Stanford (two); and Harvard.

UPP Chair Professor Joseph Viteritti participated in an "Ask the Experts" Q&A with John Lentz, Editor-in-Chief of City & State magazine, about "What Can Amazon Do to Sell its HQ2 Plan in New York City" (February 5, 2019).

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti has written an opinion piece for the Daily News, "We're Not the City of Amazon After All: The Soul of the City Snapped Back." February 19, 2019

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was interviewed by AM New York for a piece on "President de Blasio? Mayor de Blasio ponders a White House run while testing the waters (Ice) in New Hampshire," February 12, 2019.

Laura Wolf-Powers, Associate Professor, is going to be part of a panel on blight at the Municipal Art Society of New York on March 6, 2019. https://mailchi.mp/mas/youre-invitedurbanist-breakfast-brainstorm-201489?e=f57fa703ca

Associate Professor Victoria Johnson’s book American Eden has been awarded a 2019 John Brinkerhoff Jackson Prize by the Foundation for Landscape Studies.

Laxmi Ramasubramanian, Associate Professor, is the recipient of the 2019 William R. and June Dale Scholar Prize for Excellence in Urban and Regional Planning.  The Dale Prize is awarded by California State Polytechnic University, Pomona’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning. Awarded since 2004, the Dale Prize recognizes planning excellence, creates dialogue between scholars and practitioners, and enriches the education of planning students. The Dale Prize is awarded in pairs, recognizing a scholar and a practitioner. Awardees spend two days on the Cal Poly campus, meet with students in classes, and participate in a colloquium and other public events. The 2019 theme is From Blueprint to Resilience: Planning when Change is the Norm.

Associate Professor Lynn McCormick is quoted in Next City article, "Can This Westchester Community Revitalize without Displacement?", December 3, 2108.

UPP Chair Professor Joseph Viteritti was a guest on CUNY TV's CUNY Forum for a discussion on "Outcomes 2018: What Comes After the Elections," December 5, 2018.

Associate Professor Jill Simone Gross is co-editor of the new book, Constructing Metropolitan Space: Actors, Policies and Processes of Rescaling in World Metropolises. The book explores the contested nature of metropolitan governance on four continents. The volume is derived from the efforts of 14 scholars, exploring the degree to which globalization is generating new configurations of power and politics. The book is the outcome of a four-year collaborative research project exploring the politics of metropolitan development in Berlin, Delhi, Istanbul, New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Rome and Shenzhen.

Professor Vivian Louie has been appointed to serve on the Russell Sage Foundation Advisory Committee for its Race, Ethnicity and Immigration Program and special initiative on Immigration and Immigrant Integration.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti is the author of "Amazonian Lessons for Urbanists," Gotham Gazette, November 19, 2018, where he thanks the students in his "Governing the City" class for a stimulating discussion on the topic.

Associate Prof. Victoria Johnson's Op-Ed, "What really makes America great", is published in The Washington Post, November 15.

Associate Prof. Matthew Lasner was quoted in The Nation in an article analyzing recent housing bills in Congress and the role housing might play in the 2020 election.

UPP Chair Professor Joseph Viteritti was quoted in a Wall Street Journal (October 8) article on Mayor Bill de Blasio's decision to replace his SUV and other official vehicles with hybrid cars that are more environmentally friendly.

Laura Wolf-Powers recently published an article (co-authored with Naomi Adiv) in the journal Urban Geography: "User Fees and the permeability of public space at municipal pools and bathhouses in New York City 1870-present."  https://works.bepress.com/laura_wolf_powers/45/

Professor Victoria Johnson's book American Eden has just been named one of five finalists for the 2018 National Book Award in Nonfiction: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/books/national-book-foundation-announces-finalists-for-69th-annual-award.html.

Prof. Matthew Lasner’s latest essay, “Architecture’s Progressive Imperative: Housing Betterment in the 19th and 20th Centuries” appears in a special issue of the UK journal AD devoted to the topic of social equity in housing. A review of the issue was published in Next City last week. Lasner also presented his research at a panel at the Center For Architecture earlier this month; video of the event can be seen on its Website.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was interviewed by WAMU Radio, the NPR station in Washington D.C., regarding the merits (and limits) of governance arrangements that give mayors operational control over urban school districts. The interview ran on the day (September 17) that the District of Columbia City Council was considering a proposal to amend its governance law and end the system of mayoral control of schools that has been in effect since 2007.

Along with Weijie Wang at the University of Missouri, Dr. Ryan Yeung published an article in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory on the effectiveness of the NYC DOE’s Empowerment Zone Innovation. Click here for the article.

Associate Professor Jill Simone Gross published a new article (book chapter):
Gross, J. S. (2018). The governance of superdiversity: a tale of two North American cities. In The Routledge Handbook of the Governance of Migration and Diversity in Cities (pp. 251-261). Routledge. Click here for the description.

In addition, Prof. Gross has been chosen to serve as "President Elect 2019-20 of the Urban and Local Politics Section of the American Political Science Association" and asked to serve on the "2018-19 Robert A. Dahl Award" Committee of the American Political Science Association. The Robert A. Dahl Award is awarded annually to an untenured scholar who has produced scholarship of the highest quality on the subject of democracy.

Prof. Sigmund Shipp has been selected in a CUNY-wide competition to co-teach a course in Spring 2019 at the CUNY Graduate Center for the Futures Initiative Program. The aim of the proposed course, to be team-taught with  Professor of Sociology, Public Health, & Urban Education  Juan Battle, is to support diversity, equity, and student-centered interdisciplinary learning at the graduate level, to strengthen faculty diversity at the Graduate Center, and to establish robust peer mentoring among faculty members across the CUNY system.

Associate Professor Victoria Johnson's book, American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic is one of ten books on the list for consideration for a National Book Award in nonfiction.

Professor Victoria Johnson's new book, American Eden, about the first botanical garden in the United States (and how it became the site of Rockefeller Center), has been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. American Eden has also been chosen as one of Amazon's "Best History books of June" and as an editors' pick at Nature, Scientific American, Popular Science, and the New York Times Sunday Book Review. Her book was published in June by Liveright, a division of W. W. Norton & Co.

Prof. Wolf-Powers was on a panel of respondents gathered to discuss Alan Mallach's new book The Divided City at an event co-sponsored by the Regional Plan Association and the Century Foundation on June 25th.
https://tcf.org/content/event/divided-city-discussion-alan-mallach/

Prof. John Chin was recently appointed to the NIH Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council (https://www.oar.nih.gov/oarac/members.asp) and to the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholars Program (http://healthpolicyresearch-scholars.org/about-the-program/).

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was quoted in a front page story in the New York Times (July 5) about the role of Asian Americans in New York City politics.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was invited by NBC News to write an opinion piece on former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, which was posted online, as  "Losing It: The Tragic Self-Immolation of Rudy Giuliani," NBC News, Think, May 30, 2018.

Prof. Matthew Lasner is quoted in the current issue of The Nation, which includes several articles exploring the affordable housing crisis United States. Click here to read.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was extensively quoted in a Gotham Gazette (May 10) article on the establishment of two Charter Commissions for New York City.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was interviewed by WNYC/NPR about Mayor de Blasio's proposal to a appoint a Charter Review Commission. Parts of the interview were aired on February 18th and 19th. He also was quoted extensively in a Gotham Gazette (February 21) article on the same subject.

UPP Professor Owen Gutfreund is quoted in am New York online article, “Cycling growth slows in NYC after decades-long boom, DOT report says” written by Vincent Barone, March 21, 2018.

UPP Prof. Ryan Yeung is the Co-author of two articles published by Springer, March 12, 2018. “The Impact of U.S. News College Rankings on the Compensation of College and University Presidents” written with Philip Gigliotti (SUNY, Albany) and Phuong Nguyen-Hoang (University of Iowa) and “The Impact of U.S. News College Rankings on the Compensation of College and University Presidents” written with Phuong Nguyen-Hoang.

Prof. Wolf-Powers' article, "The Maker Movement and Urban Economic Development," was the runner-up for the Journal of the American Planning Association's Best Paper of 2017. The article can be found through the Hunter College library and directly at the journal here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01944363.2017.1360787.

On January 31st, UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti gave a book talk, followed by a signing, at the City Seminar hosted by Professor Kenneth Jackson at the Columbia University's Herbert H. Lehman Center for American History.

Associate Professor Laura Wolf-Powers is a co-author of the article "Manufacturing without the firm: Challenges for the maker movement in three U.S. cities," published in December in the journal Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. Prof. Wolf-Powers was quoted in Crain's New York business in October on the irrational mania prompting cities to overuse economic development subsidy to attract companies like Amazon.

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20171015/POLITICS/171019919/amazon-will-expect-subsidies-nycs-record-on-attracting-jobs-through-incentives-is-mixed

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti is the author of an essay, "De Blasio's Second Act Will Feature the Same Script but a Larger Audience," in City Limits magazine (December 7, 2017)

James Rausse (MUP '02), AICP, has been appointed as the APA Chapter Presidents Council Liaison to the AICP Commission. James previously served as APA-New York Metro Chapter President and Vice President for Professional Development. He will serve on the Chapter Presidents Council board, which represents APA's 47 Chapters. James also graduated with a second Masters Degree in Organizational Dynamics, concentrating in Sustainable Development from the University of Pennsylvania in May 2017.

Prof. William Milczarski is the co-author of two recently published articles.  “Injuries caused by falls from playground equipment in the United States” written with Peter Tuckel(Hunter's Sociology Department) and David Silverman (Yale) was published in Clinical Pediatrics.  “Injury-related falls from bicycles, skateboards, roller skates, and non-motorized scooters in the United States: 2005-2014” written with Peter Tuckel and Richard Maisel (NYU) was published in the Journal of Epidemiological Research.

Dr. Laxmi Ramasubramanian has published her second book!  Essential Methods for Planning Practitioners: Skills and Techniques for Data Analysis, Visualization, and Communication, with co-author Jochen Albrecht. It is published by Springer. The foreword is written by Professor Mike Batty, urban theorist and Chair, at the Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College, London.

Kerry McLean, MUP alum, has been selected as one of the 2017 LISC Michael Rubinger Community Fellows. Read More

UPP adjunct faculty members Philip Plotch and Jen Nelles' article "Mitigating Gridlock: Lessons on Regional Governance from the Organization that Keeps New York Moving,"  is published in Articulo – Journal of Urban Research. To read article click here.

UPP alumnus Prudence Katze (MUP 2015) invites the Hunter community to the premiere of her documentary film, The Iron Triangle. The film is about the bustling industrial community of Willets Point, Queens, where a group of small, immigrant-run businesses banded together to fight a development plan that would bulldoze their slice of the American Dream. Through the testimony of city officials, real estate developers, urban theorists, and the workers of Willets Point, The Iron Triangle offers a deep exploration of the controversial changes facing New York City. Their story launches an investigation into New York City’s history as the front line of deindustrialization, urban renewal, and gentrification.

The film will be screened at the DOC NYC Film Fest on Sat. 11/11 at 4:30 pm and Thur. 11/16 at 12:30 pm.

Prudence has offered to try to get free tickets for current students who would like to attend. If interested, contact her at contact@prudencekatze.net.

For more information on the film visit http://theirontrianglemovie.com/

New UPP Prof. Lily Baum Pollans' academic article, "PAYT Helps Drive Residential Food Scraps Collection " published this summer is featured in October 2017 issue of BioCycle Magazine, a magazine devoted to composting, renewable energy, and sustainability.

Rebecca Chau, former Hunter MUP student, was awarded the Runner-Up prize in the nationwide ACSP-GPEIG competition for the best international case study completed by a student in the last two years.  Her paper, Social Urbanism: Transformational Policy in Medellin, Colombia, was completed in Professor Gutfreund's course on Cities in Developing Countries.  It will be published on the ACSP-GPEIG website.  Congratulations, Rebecca!

Prof. Matthew Gordon Lasner appeared on The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC-FM on October 5 to talk about the history of co-ops and condos as part of a series the show is doing in advance of the November mayoral election entitled "The People’s Guide to Power: Real Estate Edition.” Listen to the segment at https://www.wnyc.org/story/new-yorks-first-co-op/.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti was a guest on the premiere of Brian Talks New York, hosted by Brian Lehrer, which was aired for the first time on CUNY TV on October 4th.

Faculty member Laura Wolf-Powers has two articles out this fall. One, "Food Deserts and Real Estate-Led Social Policy," argues that the popularity of the "food desert" meme has have led policymakers astray in their responses to food insecurity. It was published in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. The other, co-authored with colleagues at University of Illinois and Portland State University, examines the entrepreneurs at the center of the urban "maker" phenomenon and reflects on implications for local manufacturing and economic development policy. It appears in the fall issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti is the author of an essay on Bill de Blasio, Economic Justice, and the Democratic Party in The Nation (September 11, 2017).

Prof. Shipp's book review of  "The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City" by Eric Avila (2014).

Prof. Jill Simone Gross has been asked to serve as Program Co-Chair for the Urban Politics Section (http://www.apsanet.org/section13) of the American Political Science Association, for their 2018 conference scheduled for August 30 - September 2, 2018 Boston, MA

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti’s new book The Pragmatist: Bill de Blasio’s Quest to Save the Soul of New York(Oxford) was reviewed by Sam Roberts in the New York Times on August 27th. Professor Viteritti has also posted podcast interviews on Am New York, City and State, and Gotham Gazette, and an online interview with Politico magazine. An excerpt of the book was published on City & State on  September 5 and will be reissued on September 12.​

The Westchester Municipal Planning Federation (WMPF) offers a $2000 scholarship to a student who is currently enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate planning program (or a closely-related program such as architecture, landscape architecture, public administration, public policy or geography) and who plans to continue his/her studies in the following school year. The 2017 Westchester Municipal Planning Federation scholarship was awarded to Gregory Cutler. Greg received his bachelor’s degree in Geography from Binghamton University and is currently pursuing a Masters in Urban Planning at Hunter College.

Prof. Ryan Yeung is quoted in "2017's Best Places to Flip Houses"  Wallethub.com, Aug. 1

Prof. Sigmund Shipp was interviewed about the city council proposal to enforce timely inspections of noise violations in Hell's Square (on the lower east side) and other NYC locations. The interview aired on Fox 5 News Wednesday, August 2nd. For further reading, click here.

Prof. Joseph P. Viteritti, UPP Chair, was quoted in the New York Times in an Q and A on mayoral control of the schools.

"Does it Matter Who Runs New York City's Schools?" By Kate Taylor, June 23, 2017

May 22, 2017

Dear Students, Alums, Faculty, and Friends:

It is with great sadness that I write to you on the passing of Professor Stanley Moses, who died on Friday, May 19^th, after suffering from a head injury that he incurred from a fall that took place on May 14^th.

Stanley delighted in the time he spent with students. He used to tell me that it kept him going; and it did so for a long time, if not long enough for those who had the pleasure of knowing him. He had taught graduates and undergraduates in our department since 1971, and served as chair from 1998 to 2008. Most recently, he had taken on particular responsibility for two courses: “The Structure of the Urban Region” and “Plans, Policies and Politics,” though he taught a diverse menu of offerings over the years. Stanley also had a record of public service at both the federal and state levels of government that allowed him to bring his practical insights into the classroom.

Stanley was a proud product of CUNY, a graduate of City College who had gone on to earn a doctorate from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 1971. He was widely read, and had an intellectual curiosity that seemed to have no bounds.

His own scholarship focused on two issues that continued to occupy his attention throughout his long career: equality of educational opportunity and full employment. On the former, he was the author of The Elusive Quest: The Struggle for Equality of Educational Opportunity (1992), a book on school finance reform that he wrote with his Hunter colleague, Edwin Margolis, with a forward by the late New York Governor Mario Cuomo.

His interest in full employment was piqued by his Syracuse University mentor, Bertram Gross, a devoted advocate for the issue who eventually joined our department faculty as a Distinguished Professor. Stanley later edited a festschrift in honor of his former teacher that was published in 1995 under the title, Enduring Visions: The Legacy of Bertram Gross.

Stanley’s real passion was to engage people; his most valuable legacy is the example he set for us all by the way he indulged that passion. He had a tireless devotion to students: always the first to sign up for their events, always present to pose a thoughtful question when they presented, ever ready to celebrate their accomplishments, ever ready to offer a helping hand and assure them he cared. There was a genuine kindness about Stanley that you had to notice if you knew him. He regularly dropped by to ask how you were doing; he would take long trips to visit former colleagues when they were ill; he would go out of his way to support his junior colleagues; and he would never hesitate to tell his senior colleagues to lighten up when they took themselves too seriously.

Stanley’s absence will be felt by all.

A memorial service is being planned.

With sincere regrets,

Joseph Viteritti

Thomas Hunter Professor of Public Policy

Chair, Urban Policy and Planning Department

Prof. Jill Gross posts a piece, Accomplishing Agonism in Urban Governance, in the Urban Affairs Forum presented by Urban Affairs Review,  March 10, 2017. 2017.

March 19, 2017

Dear Members and Friends of the Urban Policy and Planning Community:

I write with deep sorrow to inform you of the passing of Professor Peter Kwong, who died of cardiac arrest on Friday, March 17th.

Professor Kwong had been a member of the Hunter faculty since 1993, where he was a Distinguished Professor in the Urban Policy and Planning Department and a Professor of Asian-American studies. He was also a member of the doctoral faculty  in Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center. In our department, he regularly taught a workshop for incoming students in the graduate program in Urban Policy and Leadership, and courses on immigration and the gentrification of Chinatown. Over his career, he taught as a Visiting Professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, the City University of Hong Kong, and the People’s University of China, as well as Princeton, Oberlin, Yale, Columbia, Berkeley, and UCLA.

Peter Kwong was born in China in 1941. He came to this country to attend Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, where he received a B.A. in math and physics. He subsequently earned a B.S. in Civil Engineering at Columbia University before enrolling at Columbia to get a certificate in East Asian Studies and a Ph.D. in political science.

Peter had a passionate commitment to issues of social justice and a long record of activism concerning conditions in the Asian-American community. His career spanned the fields of scholarship, journalism and film-making, all directed to improve the lives of people who were marginalized by discrimination or social deprivation. A recent article in New York Magazine referred to him as the “Dean of Chinatown Studies.”

He was the author of five books and hundreds of articles. Among his books were Chinese America: The Untold Story of America’s Oldest New Community, which he co-authored with his wife, Dusanka Miscevic, a historian and frequent collaborator; Forbidden Workers: Illegal Chinese Immigrants and American Labor; and The New Chinatown. Kwong challenged the notion that Asians are a model minority, revealing in his research widespread class divisions, poverty, exploitation, drug abuse, and organized crime -- all of which were exacerbated by decades of discrimination by a majority white society. At the time of his death, Peter and his wife were completing a history of Chinese immigration in the western United States, and he was beginning to work on an autobiography.

Peter’s journalism appeared in such outlets as The Nation, Village Voice, International Herald Tribune, and Philadelphia Inquirer. He was frequently interviewed by the New York Times and other major news outlets. His essay on multi-cultural race riots in Los Angeles, published in the Village Voice in 1992, merited the Sidney Hillman Foundation Prize, the George Polk Award, and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His 1990 article in the Village Voice on Chinese drug cartels, co-authored with Dusanka Miscevic, was also nominated for a Pulitzer.

As with his scholarship and journalism, Peter’s filmmaking always delivered a strong social message. His 1980 PBS film, Third Avenue: Only the Strong Survive, documented steep class divisions along Manhattan’s East Side, and won him an Emmy Award. His HBO documentary, China Unnatural Disaster, co-produced with Jon Alpert, was nominated for an Academy Award in 2010. The heart-wrenching film highlighted corruption, incompetence and neglect by the Chinese government that became apparent as a result of the catastrophic earthquake of 2008 in Sichuan Provence that killed 70,000 people, including 10,000 children. The Chinese police detained Peter and Jon Alpert during the course of the filming.

Peter Kwong enjoyed an international reputation as an activist, scholar, journalist, and film-maker. He was a personal friend of the Dalai Lama, who, because of Peter’s good graces, has visited Hunter College on two occasions. Peter and his wife “Douska” reciprocated in 2011 by accepting an invitation from the spiritual leader to visit his residence in India.

Our community will dearly miss Peter’s irreplaceable presence. A memorial service celebrating his extraordinary life and achievements will be held at Hunter College later this spring. Details will be posted on both the college and department websites when final arrangements are made.

With Sincere Regrets,

Joseph P. Viteritti

Thomas Hunter Professor of Public Policy

Chair, Urban Policy and Planning Department

UPP Chair Joseph P. Viteritti was quoted in The New York Times article, “Questioning Whether de Blasio Will Learn From a Teachable Moment”, March 17, 2017. To read, click here.

UPP Prof. Ryan Yeung discusses Milwaukee School Board's recent district-wide school uniform requirement on The Joy Cardin Radio Show,

"The Effects Of School Uniforms", March 3, 2017.  To listen to the audio, click here.

Professor Gross was busily over her winter break. She participated in a PodCast with two urban governance scholars: Susan Clarke, Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado Boulder (http://www.colorado.edu/polisci/people/faculty-emeritus/susan-clarke) and Allison Bramwell, Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina Greensboro (https://psc.uncg.edu/people/bramwell/). In Part 1 the conversation explores the question of whether "Collaborative Governance" is the next phase for urban research? In Part 2 they ask: "What do we gain or overlook in a "collaborative governance" approach?

Both PodCasts can be found at the Urban Affairs Forum Presented by Urban Affairs Review web site https://urbanaffairsreview.com

The program prepares academically promising undergraduate students who have an interest in attending graduate school. Eligible students who are accepted to the program attend a six-week summer program and an array of workshops, seminars, and lectures throughout the academic year which will enhance students' technical, writing, and research skills. Graduate Record Examination (GRE) preparation workshops are also offered at various points throughout the academic year to enhance students' opportunity to help them gain acceptance to graduate schools of their choice.

Prof. Gross  had a short piece published in the Roosevelt House Public Policy Forum titled "Facing the Realities of Geo-Political Division in the Age of Trump: The Metropolitan Future and the Need for Collaborative Models of Governance" which can be accessed at

http://www.roosevelthouse.hunter.cuny.edu/?forum-post=facing-realities-geo-political-division-age-trump-metropolitan-future-need-collaborative-models-governance

Prof. Owen Gutfreund was quoted in New York Newsday and amNew York about the Governor's proposal to overhaul JFK Airport, January 4,  2017.

UPP Chair Joseph Viteritti appeared on Brian Lehrer's POTUS 2016 on December 7 to discuss Trump's cabinet appointments in HUD and education. To watch the episode "A Look into Trump's Cabinet" click here.

MUP student Maggie Calmes and Gotham Gazette Reporter, Samar Khurshid's 'Fair Share' story published in two parts in the Gotham Gazette.

Part 1, The City May Soon Have More Formal 'Fair Share'Discussion (November 18, 2016) and Part 2, 'Fair Share' Design Flaws, Flashpoints & Possible Updates  (November 21, 2016).

Prof. Peter Kwong talks about the growing impact of art galleries in Chinatown at the town hall meeting,"Chinatown is Not for Sale", October 22, 2016. For more details, read "Artists and Gallerists Grapple with Ways to Slow Gentrification in Manhattan’s Chinatown".

Prof. Peter Kwong quoted in NY Times article, "In a Promise to Lift a Curse, a Scheme to Steal Chinese Immigrants’ Savings", by Liz Robbins, October 20, 2016. Click here for further reading.

Calvin Brown, MUP Alumni and DCP Planner, is featured prominently in "City’s East Harlem Plan Tracks Community Blueprint", Citylimits.org, October 19, 2016.
For further reading, click here.

MUP students in Prof. Pablo Vengoechea's Fall 2016 planning studio class, Downtown Commercial Corridors of Staten Island, are covered in NY1 News, "Graduate Students Seek Input on How to Revitalize North Shore", October 19, 2016. The students held a workshop with members of the community to seek input about their project.

UPP Adjunct Charles Starks gives a talk at Federal Hall on George McAneny, a New York politician and city planner of the early 20th century. Participating in a Q&A with Charles Starks will be the Manhattan Borough Historian, Michael Miscione, and preservationist Anthony C. Wood. For further details, click here.

Prof. Jill Gross' recent publication, "Hybridization and Urban Governance Malleability, Modality, or Mind-Set?." Urban Affairs Review (2016): 1078087416637127. Cracks the top 50 most read articles in the journal for the month of August-- #39 and counting!

Photography by Rashedul Deepon, Master in Urban Planning student, is featured in  The NYC Hustle exhibition Strictly New York 3 August 25-27, 2016. For further reading, click here.

UPP Prof. Pablo Vengoechea's Landmark Colony project is mentioned in The Architects Newspaper, "A torrent of new projects on Staten Island are reshaping the once-forgotten borough", written by Audrey Wachs, June 9, 20016. Prof. Vengoechea's firm,  Vengoechea + Boyland architects (v + b) is transforming six of the site’s 11 buildings into seniors' residences with 350 units. The project is one of many projects that will reshape Staten Island's shoreline and inland areas. For further reading, click here.

Prof. Matthew Lasner argues for more government subsidies for housing in The Nation's article " The Case for Public Housing". For further reading, click here.

MSUPL students Samantha Chiafolo, Dina Amer, Wednesday Moore, and Rashad Dismute were selected as New York State Excelsior Fellows 2016-2017. The fellowship program is an initiative to bring highly talented graduates into government service. Fellows will be working over the next two year on high level policy initiatives at the state level.

Hunter UPP Professor Jill Simone Gross' latest Journal article "Hybridization and Urban Governance: Malleability, Modality, or Mind-Set?" Urban Affairs Review 1078087416637127, first published on April 11, 2016 as doi:10.1177/1078087416637127 just released for viewing Online First at Urban Affairs Review. The article is part of a mini symposium on urban governance with Susan E. Clarke, Allison Bramwell and Jon Pierre.

UPP Prof. Jill Simone Gross's newest article "Migrants and the Right to the City" has just been published in Yasminah Beebeejaun (Ed.) The Participatory City (Berlin: JOVIS Verlag GmbH, 2016). The article explores "ongoing patterns of exclusion, and the inability of cities to engage citizens in efforts to build socially cohesive neighborhoods." She asks, "what if anything a right to the city might offer to planners seeking to counter or challenge the forces of...balkanization in the contemporary city?" She uses the case of Dublin, Ireland to illustrate these dilemmas.

Details of the book can be found at https://www.jovis.de/en/books/details/the-participatory-city.html

Prof. Jill Simone Gross, Director of the M.S. Urban Policy and Leadership program, was elected to serve a second term as Chair of the Urban Affairs Association. The second term runs from spring 2016 to spring 2017.

Professors John Chin, Sigmund Shipp, Jill Simone Gross, current MS Urban Policy and Leadership Student Caitlin Ho, and ABD Marry Rocco (University of Pennsylvania and Hunter, MUP graduate) just returned from a fantastic Urban Affairs Association Conference in San Diego. They all made our Department shine, while bringing a strong lens to issues of social justice!

Prof. John Chin and Caitlin Ho presented their paper: "Gendered Labor Markets within Ethnic Economies: Asian Immigrant Women Working in Sexually Oriented Massage Parlors in New York City," on behalf of John Chin, Hunter College CUNY; Lois M. Takahashi, UCLA; Douglas J. Wiebe, University of Pennsylvania; Caitlin Ho, Hunter College CUNY

Prof. Sigmund Shipp presented a paper Titled: "The Geography of White Poverty", on behalf of Sigmund Shipp, Hunter College; Lynn McCormick, Hunter College; Mary Rocco, University of Pennsylvania.

Mary Rocco, MUP Hunter, ABD University of Pennsylvania gave a paper on her doctoral work titled, "Revitalizing Legacy Cities in the 21st Century: The Role of Foundations"

And Prof. Jill Simone Gross brought an international lens to her standing room only Colloquy titled: "Re-thinking Justice in the City in the Wake of Ferguson and Baltimore" with Todd Swanstrom, University of Missouri-St. Louis; Michael Leo Owens, Emory University; Henry Taylor, University of Buffalo; and Cathy Schnieder, American University.

Other notable Hunter sightings at the conference included former Teaching Fellow Kimberly Libman (PhD Environmental Psychology, CUNY Graduate Center, now at the New York Academy of Medicine). Dr, Libman presented a paper titled"New York State Hospital “Community Building” Investments: Will They Advance Health Equity?." Shauneequa Owusu, a graduate of the MS Urban Affairs program (currently at New York Academy of Medicine) moderated a panel titled "Health and Community Development: Rethinking Anchor Investments and Institutions." Fredrica D. Kramer, DPA, gave a paper titled "The Loss of Social Diversity in Urban Revitalization and the Promise of Social Impact Assessment to Fix It." Dr, Kramer is an educator, researcher and consultant who came to Hunter to work with Paul Davidoff and was in the first class of MUP graduates in 1968. Dr. Kramer, is currently based in Washington DC. Also in attendance was Professor Kevin Keenan, PhD. ( College of Charleston, and among our adjunct summer school faculty), who gave a paper titled,"The Gender Values-Vulnerability Nexus and Studying Societal Responses to Terrorism."

Prof. Laxmi Ramasubramanian has been appointed by Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell, to serve on the National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC). The Committee will review and comment on geospatial policy and management issues and provide a forum to convey views representative of non-Federal partners in the geospatial community. Prof. Ramasubramanian will hold a three-year appointment concluding December 31, 2018.

Additional information can be found at:
https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-department-appoints-new-members-and-leadership-national-geospatial-advisory

Prof. Matthew Lasner's book and exhibit on affordable housing featured in "The Long, Complicated History of Affordable Housing in New York," written by Eillie Anzilotti, The Atlanta City Lab.

UPP Visiting Professor Pablo Vengoechea’s project, The Landmark Colony, is the focus of New York Times article,”New Life for Staten Island’s Derelict Farm Colony”, written by David W. Dunlap, January 20, 2016.

The Landmark Colony project, headed by architects Pablo Vengoechea and Timothy G. Boyland is a master plan for the redevelopment of Staten Island’s derelict Farm Colony. Staten Island Developer, Raymond Masucci purchased 45 acres of the Farm Colony for $1 and plans to rehabilitate it at a cost of about $91 million dollars. The plan includes building approximately 350 senior-targeted condominium units, the rehabilitation of 5 of the 11 historic buildings, approximately 17,000 SF of commercial space, and much more. For further reading, click here.

Prof. Matthew Lasner's new book, "Affordable Housing in New York:The People, Places, and Policies That Transformed a City", is the subject of Slate Magazine article, "The People Who Call New York’s Affordable Housing Developments Home", written by Jordan G. Teiche, February 1, 2016.

UPP Distinguished Professor Peter Kwong quoted in Radio Free Asia, CBS Money Watch, and AlJazeera, December 2015.

China Seeks Wider Global Reach With African Loans, Naval Presence: Analysts Reported
by Yang Jiadai for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie, Radio Free Asia, December 4, 2015.

Xi Jinping delivers a speech in Johannesburg, South Africa, Dec. 4, 2015 announcing China would be extending $60 billion in debt facilities to African countries as well as writing off existing loans in a three-year plan to extend its influence in the region. Peter Kwong, Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York, agreed, saying that China appears to be taking a well-trodden colonialist path in Africa. "It's very similar to the [European] colonialism of the 19th century," Kwong said. "It's not just about resources; it's also about achieving political control over these places." For further reading, click here..

China's crackdown on graft, media obscures picture for investors
Written by Robert Hennelly, Money Watch, December 21, 2015.

"Nobody inside China wants to do news or documentaries anymore because the politics are so unsettled," said Peter Kwong, a documentary filmmaker and professor of Chinese-American history at Hunter College in New York. "They are doing very safe things. People are intimidated." For further reading, click here..

Gentrification threatens Chinatowns across the US
Development and rising rents are pushing many ethnic Chinese out of the neighbourhoods they call home.
Written by Gabriel Elizondo, Lucia He, Business & Economy, United States, Aljazeera, December 29, 2015.

"A Chinatown is not just where the people reside. Chinatown is a place where social networks, economic fabrics have been built," Kwong said. "New immigrants come, want to adjust, want to find a job, want to know how to fund a business. And the information, the material, the supplies, all these things come from a place like Chinatown."The development of cities has been pressuring Chinese communities to move out of the neighbourhoods where they have been living for decades, according to Kwong. For further reading, click here..

UPP Professor Matthew Lasner and Prof. Nicholas Bloom, NYIT, co-editors of "Affordable Housing in New York: The People, Places, and Policies that Transformed a City", discuss the history of housing in NYC on CUNY TV’s "Eldridge and Company", December 8, 2015. For further reading, click here.

Photos from Professor Matthew Lasner’s new book, "Affordable Housing in New York", are featured in the New York Times article, “An Affordable Place of One’s Own”.

UPP Prof. Matthew Lasner and Alicia Glen, New York Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development interview with VICE on affordable housing in New York,"Can New York Save Itself from Out-of-Control Rents?", November 8, 2015. Prof. Lasner shares his views on Mayor de Blasio’s ten year housing plan. For further reading click here.

"Dont Make Times Square square: Be careful not to turn the commons into an overmanaged suburban space" article by Anthony Maniscalco,UPP Adjunct Associate Professor and author of “Public Spaces, Marketplaces and the Constitution”, is published in the New York Daily News Opinion Section, Sunday October 11, 2015.

Our 2009 Urban Planning degree alum, Ryan Rzepecki, is the CEO of Social Bicycles (SoBi), an NYC-based company that recently won a contract to manage Portland's bike share system. The proposal calls for a 600-bike fleet as part of a long-delayed bike rental program to be rolled out as soon as next summer in order to help renew Portland's reputation as a bicycle-friendly city. Click here to read more...

UPP Distinguished Professor Peter Kwong, known by many in Chinatown as the Dean of Chinatown scholars, is quoted in the September 24, 2015 New Yorker Magazine article, “How Has Chinatown Stayed Chinatown?” Prof. Kwong, the author of numerous books on Chinese-American immigrants says, “Chinatown has reinvented itself, that’s why it’s still here.” For further reading, click here.

Ryan Rzepecki,Hunter MUP 2009 alum is CEO of Social Bicycles (SoBi), an NYC-based company that recently won a contract to manage Portland's bike share system. Click here to read the article, "Portland says bike share coming in 2016, names bicycle supplier"

Hunter MUP students Mia Moffett and Melissa Plaut gain scholarships for the fall 2015 semester through Advancing Women in Transportation (WTS) Greater New York Chapter.

On Thursday, July 9, HunterUAP students traveled to Washington DC where they presented the research findings to senior level White House staff. Students studied the planning and implementation of the Obama Administration’s place-based initiatives.

The project grew out of the URBG 702 Structure of the Urban Region class offered in Summer Session I. For this class, students studied various urban plans, policies and programs at national, regional, city and neighborhood scales. Under the guidance of Adjunct Professor Mary Rocco, students gathered and analyzed data from five specific geographies along with the implementation of placed-based initiatives such as the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, Promise Zones, and the Mayor's Challenge to End Homelessness. Rocco, an alumnus of both the Urban Studies and Master of Urban Planning programs at Hunter, coordinated the project to demonstrate the connection between the classroom and on the ground urban practice in cities and regions. The White House Community Solutions team, led by Tara McGuinness, plans to disseminate the findings of the students' work to their partners in each of the places studied.

For more information, please contact Mary Rocco at mrocc@hunter.cuny.edu or rocco.mary@gmail.com.

Mary Rocco and students in front of the Old Executive Office building where they presented

Mary Rocco and students in front of the White House

 

 

 

Dash Henley presents as Tara McGuinness and Victoria Collins look on

 

Philip Mark Plotch, Political Science Professor at St. Peter's University in Jersey City, NJ and former UAP Adjunct Lecturer, is interviewed on WNYC in a 2-part interview, "The New Tappan Zee Isn't as Innocent as It Looks," about the political history of the new crossing being built north of the Tappan Zee Bridge and his book " Politics Across the Hudson."

Joseph P. Viteritti, Urban Planning and Policy Department Chair and editor of "Summer in the City: John Lindsay, New York and the American Dream" interviews with the New York Times, "What Bill de Blasio Can Learn From John Lindsay".

Associate Professor Lynn McCormick, who teaches courses in economic development, employment policy and planning, and manufacturing retention, authored a chapter in the recently published Handbook of Manufacturing Industries in the World Economy (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015). Entitled “The city and industry: deurbanizing manufacturing in New York City?,” the chapter examines the issues surrounding manufacturing retention in the city.

As the chapter points out, in 1950s, New York City was the largest manufacturing hub in the United States, with over one million workers. Today, manufacturers in the city employ about 75,000 people, or less than 3 percent of all local workers. Planners and policymakers face a question of whether to attempt to retain the manufacturing that remains or let it go and foster service sector expansion instead. For further reading, click here.

Each year, the Environmental Design Research Association recognizes professional and scholarly excellence in environmental design. Award-winning projects reflect an interdisciplinary approach that is enduring, human-centered, sustainable, and concerned with the experiential relationship between people and their environment (built and natural).

This year, the Great Places book award is being given to Community Matters: Service Learning in Engaged Design Planning, co-edited by Associate Professor Sigmund Shipp.

The award will be formally announced and presented at EDRA46LosAngeles, the 2015 EDRA conference held May 27-30, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. The winning entries will be on display throughout the conference and publicized throughout the year in various print and electronic publications.

Professor Shipp is the Director of the Urban Studies program. His research has involved a study of urban renewal, worker-owned cooperatives, and the Black church and college community development corporations.

The Urban Affairs and Planning Department proudly congratulates Brian Lamberta on becoming a 2015-2016 Urban Fellow. The Urban Fellows Program is sponsored by The City of New York and administered by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS). The program is designed to introduce America's finest college students and graduates to local government and public service.

Brian credits the assistance of UAP faculty members as being invaluable in guiding him toward the fellowship, specifically in terms of his professional growth and sharpening his academic skills. His placement is still unknown, but he is leaning toward the New York City Department of Small Business Services.

The Urban Affairs Association (UAA) is the international professional organization for urban scholars, researchers, and public service professionals. Congratulations to Associate Professor Jill Gross, who has just been elected Chair of the UAA Governing Board.

From the UAA website: “The Urban Affairs Association is dedicated to creating interdisciplinary spaces for engaging in intellectual and practical discussions about urban life. Through theoretical, empirical, and action-oriented research, the UAA fosters diverse activities to understand and shape a more just and equitable urban world.”

UAA includes over 700 institutional, individual, and student members from colleges and universities throughout North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Among its other activities, UAA sponsors the Journal of Urban Affairs, a refereed annual journal, publishing manuscripts related to urban research and policy analysis of interest to both scholars and practitioners.

Prof. Gross is the Director of the Graduate program in Urban Affairs. Her primary areas of research are in comparative urban politics, governance, migration and economic development in Western European and North American cities, with an emphasis on issues of equity.

Jeremiah Cox, a graduate student in urban planning, is the first - prize winner of the 2015 student paper competition for the Transportation and Planning Division (TPD) of the American Planning Association (APA). The first -prize winner is awarded a $1,000 cash prize. Jeremiah's paper, "The Shrinking, Rural Intercity Bus Network: A Problem of Immobility for Rural Residents without Automobiles and Possible Solutions, " is posted on the American Planning Association's website.

Cheers to Jeremiah!

UAP Professor and Director of the Urban Affairs program, Jill Simone Gross was recently published in Cities: The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning. Her work, co-authored with Hank V. Savitch and Lin Ye, titled, "Do Chinese cities break the global mold?" investigates the significance of China's new-found globalism.

Professor Gross wrote about a similar subject for the Journal of Urban Affairs in the article titled, "Asia and the Pacific Rim: The New Peri-Urbanization and Urban Theory" with Lin Ye and Richard Legates. She also participated in the Second International Conference on Regional and Urban Development last month at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China where urban clusters and regional development were discussed through the lens of contemporary public administration.

Ted Orosz, an adjunct lecturer in the Hunter College Urban Planning program, in collaboration with Sean Di Luccio, a planning undergraduate student at the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz, created a special feature for the American Planning Association. In their report, Green Acres: The Greatest Planned Neighborhood You've Never Heard Of, they detail the significance of the history of Green Acres, New York, a neighborhood just east of New York City in Nassau County. Click here to read more about the cultural and historical importance of this seemingly forgotten planning project.

In 2011, the International Research Training Group 1705 "The World in the City" was established under the auspices of the TU Berlin in conjunction with two universities in Berlin, four New York City universities (including City University of New York) and two Canadian universities to conduct interdisciplinary, internationally-oriented metropolis research.

The workshop “Metropolitan Capitalism, Family, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship,” was held in New York City from October 9th to 10th. It was jointly organized by Fordham University and the DFG--the German government's official Research Foundation's--New York office. In the opening presentation titled “The Historical Impact of Entrepreneurship on Metropolitan Development,” Professor Owen Gutfreund emphasized the importance of both successful individual and communal assumption of risk in order to enable quantum leaps in metropolitan development. Click here to read more about the workshop.

Our Urban Affairs and Planning Department at Hunter College has been ranked as a Top Planning School by Planetizen in their Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs, a comprehensive ranking and listing of graduate urban planning programs, which thousands of students have used to inform their decision on which graduate programs to apply to, and ultimately, attend.

According to the guide, the purpose of our Master of Urban Planning program, "is to train planners who, like their counterparts throughout the nation, have general expertise in planning theory and methods, an understanding of urban structure, specialized knowledge of a chosen planning concentration, and the skills and intellectual maturity to operate in the professional arena."

Based on the research his research with Professor Peter Tuckel in the Department of Sociology at Hunter, Hunter UAP Professor William Milczarski was invited to be part of a panel at a forum held at the UN on October 17th.  The forum was entitled, "The International Conference on Global Environment, Carbon Reduction, and Eco-drive" and Milczarski discussed how using non-motorized forms of transportation, especially walking, can make a contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Milczarski was then invited to be a guest on a TV show entitled The Inside Scoop -- Emerald Planet, which is part of the Emerald Planet network and is broadcasted on over 2,000 stations worldwide.  You can learn more about the Emerald Planet organization and the TV show at www.emerald-planet.org. Milczarski had the opportunity to not only talk about his research, but also his experience at Hunter College and what a great place the UAP department is to learn about cities and urban issues. The entire one-hour show can be accessed here, but for just Milczarski's 15-minute segment, click here.

We are so excited to congratulate two of our students for their amazing accomplishments this semester. Joshua D'Ambrosio, an urban studies undergraduate student, has received the Wells Fargo Scholarship, which awards undergraduate students and students obtaining a master’s degree in real estate to attend the Urban Land Institute fall meeting that's taking place this week. Click here for more information about this program.

Amina Hassen, a master of urban planning student, has been awarded the 2014-2015 Judith McManus Scholarship, made possible by the APA Planning Foundation. This scholarship is awarded each year to women and minority students enrolled in PAB accredited planning programs who intend to pursue careers in the public sector. To learn more about Amina and her award, click here.

Congratulations once again to these two gifted students who are making a difference in the world through their urban research and community development and planning!

Hunter UAP Professor William Milczarski along with Professor Peter Tuckel in the Department of Sociology at Hunter and Professor Richard Maisel in the Department of Sociology at New York University have an article published in the December 2014 issue of the Journal of Safety Research. Entitled "Pedestrian Injuries Due to Collisions with Bicycles in New York and California," it examines the incidence of pedestrians injured by cyclists in New York between 2004 to 2011 and in California from 2005 to 2011. They found the rate of pedestrians injured in collisions with cyclists has decreased over time. You can read the full article here and find out why that is the case.

The research was featured on The Atlantic Citylab, which you can check out here. Professors Milczarski and Tuckel were interviewed on The Brian Lehrer Show on CUNY-TV about the research. To view the entire show, click here, and their segment starts around the 16:30 mark.

The University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) has announced two recipients for its inaugural Service Award, which recognizes individuals who have significantly contributed to the growth, development and ongoing success of the organization. UAP Professor Laxmi Ramasubramanian is one of the recipients of this award.

From the UCGIS press release: "Professor Ramasubramanian recently completed her term as President of UCGIS and is now serving the organization as Past President. [She] tirelessly served the organization during a time of restructuring and renewal. Professor Ramasubramanian has also served UCGIS as Secretary, a member of the Board of Directors and Vice President. Through her diplomatic and consultative style, her inclusive view of GIScience, and her strategic planning skills, Professor Ramasubramanian has positioned the organization for a successful future."

The New York Post recently reported that the 126th Street Bus Depot in East Harlem, which is situated above a 17th-century African burial ground, will be shut down in January. Plans for the site include a memorial as well as possible residential development. The article references Hunter UAP's Fall 2011 studio report, Reclaiming Cultural Heritage: A Plan for the Harlem African Burial Ground, which recommended relocation of the bus depot and identified three possible alternative sites. The report was the result of a four-month-long planning process to provide the Harlem African Burial Ground Task Force with a cohesive plan to memorialize the site. The plan outlined design guidelines, recommendations, strategies and future policies that were intended to assist the Task Force in their efforts to memorialize the burial ground and educate the public about its historical and cultural significance.

Professor Sigmund C. Shipp is an editor of recently published Community Matters: Service-Learning in Engaged Design and Planning (Routledge, 2014). The book explores issues that resonate with a diverse group of design and planning educators drawn to the challenge of supporting greater community building and empowerment while combining learning with practice. It provides compelling evidence that educators should be adopting engaged pedagogies, research methods and theories through which they can bring together education, practice and scholarship at the boundary of community and academy.

UAP Professor Matthew G. Lasner was quoted in today's Real Estate section of The New York Times, which featured an article on middle-income housing in Manhattan:

“In New York, it’s not just the poor in Jacob Riis-type conditions who endure housing stress,” said Professor Lasner, the author of the book “High Life: Condo Living in the Suburban Century” (Yale University Press, 2012). “When it comes to housing, middle-income families also need help. They earn too much to qualify for apartments earmarked for low-income families, but they can’t afford market-rate housing. So they feel very vulnerable. They get that letter telling them their rent is going up, and they realize they’re one pen stroke away from being displaced, from having to pay a lot more for a new apartment, or worse, having to leave the city.

“They’re truly the forgotten middle, locked out of both luxury and public housing,” said Professor Lasner, whose department recently published a report titled “Where Will New Yorkers Live?” that underscored the shrinking number of affordable rentals for middle-income households. “They don’t experience as much stress as low-income families, but they live with a tremendous amount of uncertainty.”

Mitchell J. Silver, a graduate of Hunter's Master in Urban Planning program and former planning director of Raleigh, N.C., was featured in today's edition of The New York Times. Silver was recently appointed Commissioner of NYC Parks (read the full article. In the article, Silver described parks as "a system within a city. They are connected to culture. They are connected to traditions and memories, the economy, the natural systems. As a planner, I take a very different view of parks, as not just a green space but a public space.”

Professor Joseph P. Viteritti's new book on the legacy of the Lindsay administration, Summer in the City: John Lindsay, New York, and the American Dream, was celebrated last week at a conference hosted by the Public Policy Institute of Roosevelt House. Hunter College President Jennifer Raab gave introductory remarks prior to Professor Viteritt's keynote address. Sam Roberts of the New York Times and Errol Louis of NY1 moderated panel discussions with former Lindsay aides including Jay Kriegel and Ronnie Eldridge, and urban history scholars including Vincent Cannato and Lizabeth Cohen.

Each chapter of Summer in the City: John Lindsay, New York, and the American Dream covers a distinct aspect of Lindsay’s mayoralty (politics, race relations, finance, public management, architecture, economic development, and the arts). The book is an honest portrait of Lindsay and the prospects for shaping more balanced public priorities as New York City ushers in a new era of progressive leadership.

Professor Viteritti's book was mentioned in The New York Times and Crain's, and also featured on NY1 and CUNY TV.

The CUNY Academy for the Humanities and Sciences awarded Matthew G. Lasner the 2014 Feliks Gross Endowment Award. This honor is presented each year to two junior faculty members in the CUNY system who, through their research, show exceptional promise for contributing to their field, the university, and academia.

Congratulations to Mitch Silver, MUP alum and former APA president, on his recent appointment to NYC Parks Commissioner! Silver, a Brooklyn native, was most recently the Chief Planning & Development Officer and Planning Director for the City of Raleigh, North Carolina. Previously, in NYC, Silver served as planning and policy specialist for the Manhattan Borough President's office, and as a city planner. Silver played a central role as an expert consultant in the formulation of the "Harlem-on-the-River" 197-A plan, which materialized into the plan for Harlem Piers Park, redesigning a site originally pegged for a hotel development and turning it into a $20 million park.

Silver has written and spoken extensively about the need to integrate city planning and public health policy, the expansion of green spaces and recreational facilities, and the implementation of educational campaigns promoting walking and other outdoor activities. He was President of the American Planning Association, has been named one of the Top 100 City Innovators in the World by UBM Future Cities, and was named one of the top international thought leaders of the built environment by Urban Times.

According to a recent report by Hunter UAP Professor William Milczarski and Professor Peter Tuckel (Sociology), New Yorkers on bikes are riding safer than they were 4 years ago. They are also proportionally more female.

The study, "Bike Lanes + Bike Share = Bike Safety" looked at the behavior of 4,316 bicyclists at 98 different locations in central and lower Manhattan. The researchers compared the resulting data to what they found in a similar, although not identical, survey in 2009. You can read the full report here. 

The Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development (CCPD) has released a new report, Keeping the Public in Public Housing, by Tom Angotti, Director and Professor of Urban Planning and Affairs, and Sylvia Morse, Fellow and Master of Urban Planning student. The report includes a look at the New York City Housing Authority, its controversial plans for private infill development and other NYCHA initiatives, and proposes policy directions for the future. On Friday, January 31, Tom and Sylvia presented the report at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. They were joined for a discussion on the report and the future of public housing by local elected officials, planning and housing professionals, researchers, and advocates, public interest law groups, and public housing residents.

In a recent article for urbanomnibus.net, housing advocate and Hunter MUP alum Oksana Mironova investigates the planning policies and housing developments that have shaped the often-overlooked residential side of Coney Island and calls for investment in a neighborhood facing challenges of poverty, climate change, and affordability loss. Click here to read the full article, "West of Nathan's: Planning Coney Island's Residential Community."

It's been an active time for our faculty and alumni in the news. Mark Levitan, who teaches courses on poverty and inequality at Hunter UAP, was featured in The New York Times for his work on redefining the poverty index.

One of our alumni, Daniel Campo, recently published The Accidental Playground: Brooklyn Waterfront Narratives of the Undesigned and Unplanned, which was also featured in The New York Times as suggested reading for Bill de Blasio.

Speaking of Bill de Blasio: we are happy to congratulate Lilliam Barrios Paoli, a former long-standing adjunct in our department, on her appointment as his deputy mayor.

In other news, our own Peter Kwong, Distinguished Professor and noted expert on immigration policy, was recently quoted in the Wall Street Journal on recent trends in NYC immigration.

Hunter UAP professor Matthew Lasner has been awarded the 2013 Abbott Lowell Cummings Prize for his recent book, High Life: Condo Living in the Suburban Century. According to the Vernacular Architecture Forum's website, the prize is awarded to the publication that has "made the most significant contribution to the study of vernacular architecture and cultural landscapes... in judging the nominated books, jurors look for a publication that is based on primary research, emphasizes fieldwork, breaks new ground in interpretation or methodology, and contributes generally to the intellectual vitality of vernacular studies in North America."

In his new book, The Accidental Playground, planner and professor Daniel Campo, a graduate of Hunter UAP's graduate program in Urban Planning ('97), writes about the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, a seven-acre abandoned rail yard on the East River waterfront in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which he studied over a 10-year period beginning in 2000. The book was recently reviewed in The Atlantic Cities.

Hunter UAP Professors Sigmund Shipp and Lynn McCormick, along with MUP alum Mary Rocco ('09), recently wrote an op-ed entitled White Poverty Must Be Good Poverty that was featured on the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute's website. According to the article, "

An article coauthored by UAP Professor and Director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies Edwin Mélendez has been accepted for publication by the journal International Migration and is currently available online. The article, Day Labourers' Work Related Injuries: An Assessment of Risks, Choices, and Policies discusses the relationship between wages and the risk of work-related injury among Latino immigrants who find employment as day laborers in the US. According to the abstract, the authors find “a statistically significant wage premium

On June 8th, SImagines held their third community visioning workshop, looking at the future of coastal neighborhoods along Staten Island’s South Shore in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Facilitated by Hunter UAP Professor Pablo Vengochea and 5 UAP students working as interns, among others collaborators, the charette brought members of the communities together with professional and academic experts to start imagining what a community vision for a sustainable, resilient Staten Island should include.

A partnership between Hunter College UAP, the American Planning Association, and the Staten Island Chapter of the AIA, SImagines has held similar charettes for the East Shore and the North Shore. Read more here at the Staten Island Advance, follow SImagine's Facebook page, or watch this video of the North Shore workshop.

In a taped interview with Brian Lehrer and an article published by City Lights, Professor Tom Angotti discusses the New York Housing Authority’s plan to build market-rate housing on open land between public housing developments.

Elaine Walsh, UAP Professor and Director of the Public Service Scholar Program, was honored today as a “Woman of Distinction” by the New York State Senate. She was selected for the award by 28th District Senator Liz Krueger for her history as “a passionate and dedicated advocate in her community.” Citing her work with local organizations, her work in academia, and her career as a social worker, the award lauds both her professional accomplishments and her “selfless volunteerism.” Read the full award text here.

In the April 22nd issue of The Nation, UAP Professor Peter Kwong writes about government corruption in China and the reasons it will persist despite its tendency to undermine the authority of the party amidst strengthening calls for democratic reform. Click here for the full article (subscription required).

Sylvia Morse, a graduate student in the Urban Planning department, was awarded the top prize for graduate research papers at the 20th Annual Paul LeClerc Competition held by the Hunter College Library. Her paper, “Housing in Luanda, Angola: Challenges and Alternatives,” was written for Professor Owen Gutfreund’s class Cities in Developing Countries, offered by the Urban Affairs Department in the fall semester.

Jeffry Peel, a graduate student in Urban Planning at Hunter UAP, is spearheading a new study that will examine pedestrian safety in a fast-growing section of the Upper West Side. Jeff is a community board fellow, funded through a grant from the Fund for the City of New York, for Community Board 7 in Manhattan. The study will weigh data as well as public input on how to make the neighborhood friendlier to pedestrians, focusing on the area between 94th and 100th streets from Riverside Drive to Central Park West. Planning student Paul Lozito is also featured in photos accompanying the article. Read more about it here.

Laxmi Ramasubramanian, Hunter UAP professor and President of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science, has been named to the 2013-14 class of fellows at the American Council of Education. She is one of just fifty fellows chosen from senior university positions to engage in the year-long program designed to prepare participants for future roles as leaders and administrators in the world of higher education. Learn more about the ACE Fellows program here.

Thomael M. Joannidis, MSUA '06, recently published an article, Identity in Conflict: An Exploration of Gender across Ethnicity in Cyprus, in The Cyprus Review. As detailed in the abstract, the protracted ethnic conflict in Cyprus has meant that life on the island is typically framed in terms of ethnicity, putting the main communities – Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot – before all other communities and identities, including gender. As society focuses on the conflict, social and human rights issues, such as the discrimination and abuses experienced by women are often viewed as being unique to their economic standing and not reflecting Cypriot society or gender and social dynamics. Through an analysis of interviews and observations, this article contributes to current scholarship by using a holistic approach and providing an opportunity to redefine notions of community in Cyprus.

Thomael graduated from Hunter with her MS in Urban Affairs in 2006. In 2009, she was awarded a Fulbright grant to research gender and ethnic identity in post-conflict Cyprus. She currently works at New York's Office of Management and Budget analyzing the fiscal and policy impacts of city, state, and federal legislation on the City of New York.

A recent article in the LA Times, "Chronicling how U.S. condo ownership went through the roof," praises UAP Professor Matthew Lasner's book on multifamily housing, which describes how a complicated stew of social, economic and political factors led to the embrace of condominiums in the U.S.

UAP Professor Laxmi Ramasubramanian has been appointed as a member of the Transportation Research Board's Committee on Visualization in Transportation. The TRB is a division of the National Research Council (NRC).  The scope of the committee is to foster and disseminate collaborative exchange and research that enhances and promotes the usable knowledge and application of visualization methods and technologies for their potential in addressing critical transportation issues of today, as well as promoting innovative approaches to meet society’s transportation needs of the future.

Joe Viteritti, Thomas Hunter Professor of Public Policy and Chair of the Urban Affairs and Planning Department, and Mitch Korbey, adjunct instructor, are both quoted in Governing's recent article, Will the Next NYC Mayor Continue Bloomberg's Urban Planning Legacy?

Aaron Fraint, a graduate student in Hunter's Urban Planning program, has been selected as one of five finalists in the Association of American Geographers "Mashup" competition being put together in conjunction with San Diego State University. Aaron has been invited to the AAG annual meeting to present his project, "Subways in your Walkshed," a GIS-based tool for New Yorkers to explore the subway options within their walkshed. After a period of public voting (as well as AAG panelist votes) they will announce a winner. More information regarding the public voting process coming soon! Meanwhile, check out Aaron's competition entry and interactive map.

Adolfo Carrion, Jr., MUP '89, has formally announced his candidacy for NYC's upcoming mayoral race. Carrion previously served as the first director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs in the Obama administration, and as Bronx Borough President.

Distinguished Professor Peter Kwong, who has written several books on Chinese Americans, was recently quoted in The New York Times and other publications on topics ranging from: the cultural implications of the "Miss Chinatown" pageant in 1960's Philadelphia; complications surrounding John Liu's mayoral hopes; alleged mortgage fraud by a bank primarily serving NYC's Chinese immigrants; and the growing numbers of Chinese immigrants in East Harlem.

George Bodarky of WFUV interviewed Hunter UAP Professor John Chin about his research on HIV/AIDS in Asian communities, particularly in NYC. WFUV's Issues Tank Project explores health issues in NYC's immigrant communities.The number of reported AIDS cases has declined among the white population in recent years, but research shows that it's increased for Asian-Americans. You can listen to the clip here.

Matt Lasner's first book, High Life: Condo Living in the Suburban Century, has been featured recently in Atlantic Cities, Metropolis, and the Chicago Tribune.

Hunter UAP professor Owen Gutfreund is quoted in a four-part series on public housing, Housing Generations: Life in the Projects featured on WNYC. Check out his contributions to Part 2: A Shift to Violence and Part 4: An Uncertain Future.

In the November 19th issue of The Nation, UAP Professor Peter Kwong writes about China's shaky leadership transition, which is taking place amid deep intraparty divisions and growing public anger over corruption. Click here for the full article.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention invited Associate Professor William Milczarski to present his research regarding population shifts and the implications for walking in the United States. Milczarski, along with Peter Tuckel, a sociology professor at Hunter College, spoke to the CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity about changes in American attitudes and behaviors regarding walking. Read more at America Walks.

UAP Chair Joseph P. Viteritti is recently the author of two articles assessing education policies nationally and locally. The first, appearing in the Notre Dame Law Review, evaluates President Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative; the second, a book review essay published in the Journal of School Choice examines the record of former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein. Viteritti supports higher education standards, school choice, mayoral control, and polices that redirect resources to poorer children; but he cautions against the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers, questions the practice of turning schools over to non-educators, and insists that education governance must reflect democratic values like participation, representation, and responsiveness.

Jen Nelles, an adjunct professor who specializes in metropolitan governance and regional economic development, is a co-recipient of the 2011 J.E. Hodgetts Award for best English article published in the Canadian Public Administration journal. The article, “Strengthening the Ties that Bind: An Analysis of Aboriginal-Municipal Inter-Governmental Agreements in British Columbia,” is a significant contribution to understanding the evolution of aboriginal-settler relations and multilevel governance in Canada. View the abstract or read the official press release.

Tom Angotti’s The New Century of the Metropolis: Urban Enclaves and Orientalism (Routledge) argues that only when the city is understood as a necessary and beneficial accompaniment to social progress can a progressive, humane approach to urban planning be developed. Using the concept of 'urban orientalism' as a theoretical underpinning of modern urban planning grounded in global inequalities, Angotti confronts this traditional model with new, progressive approaches to community and metropolis.

"We can’t design our way out of the foreclosure crisis, or suburban sprawl, or global climate change, or the deep class and racial divides that all these at once underscore and perpetuate..." wrote Tom Angotti in The Housing Question, a virtual roundtable published by Places, the online journal of architecture, landscape and urbanism. The roundtable was held in response to the controversial MoMA exhbition, Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream.

MSUA student, Lea Jensen was featured on Inside City Hall with Errol Lewis. As part of a special cross disciplinary course with Media Studies, Lea was part of a student team that produced a documentary short detailing the journeys of homeless children to and from school. The class was taught by Emmy Award-winning journalist Barbara Nevins Taylor, this semester's Jack Newfield Visiting Professor of Journalism at Hunter College.

Award winners were honored in a special ceremony to recognize community contributions to the East Side. Professor Walsh co-chairs Community Board 8’s Zoning and Development Committee and runs the East 86th Street Association. She was recognized for her years of dedication and active involvement within the community. The OTTY (Our Town Thanks You) Awards recognize the special contributions of individuals to their East Side community.

Viteritti was part of an education fact finding panel with Paul G. Vallas, Bridgeport’s interim superintendent of schools. Bridgeport’s Charter Revision Commission will arrive at a recommendation for voters this November on whether or not to change the current city law which requires that Board of Education members be elected. Read more at ctpost.com.

Professor John Chin led a group of students in an assessment of Asphalt Green’s existing recess program which places coaches in city schools at recess to facilitate active play. Students compared “enhanced recess” at 20 schools to traditional recess at 12 schools. Findings of the study suggest that students in schools where REP program were in place were more active and less aggression toward each other than in traditional recess settings. Read more at GothamSchools online.

As plans move forward to locate Cornell’s new facility on Roosevelt Island, planners and designers alike speculate on this new vision for Roosevelt Island. Ramasubramanian is quick to reinforce the need for participatory planning that engage residents in the process. Read the full story on Urban Design Review.

In his recent article published in The Nation, An Iraq Vet’s Journey from Wall Street to OWS, UAP student Derek McGee (MSUA) chronicles his journey from Marine, to financier, to Occupy Wall Street protester. “I returned from Falluja in 2006 haunted by the sense that our country had made things worse, not better, for Iraqis. Meanwhile, at home, we'd let an invasive domestic intelligence apparatus go silently to work all around us.” In addition to his article in the Nation, Derek has made a number of media appearances, most recently on Countdown with Keith Olberman.

In Making Cities Matter, recently published in The Nation, UAP Chair Joseph P. Viteritti describes how cities today have much to learn from Mayor John Lindsey’s New York. “While Wall Street hedge-fund managers garner obscene bonuses, one in five New York residents lives in poverty.” The article presents a comparison of the placement of cities on the national agenda today and during Lindsey’s tenure as NYC mayor.

UAP Professor Laxmi Ramasubramanian, President-Elect of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS), reports the results of a survey asking how GIS is being used on college campuses in Directions Magazine. According to Professor Ramasubramanian, “GIS has a central role to play in establishing university-community partnerships.” Click here for full article.

How can the planning and research goals of educators and professionals be integrated with the needs and aspirations of the communities they serve? Find out in UAP Professor Tom Angotti’s latest book, Service Learning in Design and Planning: Educating at the Boundaries, released in December 2011. Join the UAP community on March 26th for a book release event.

Mitchell Silver, MUP ’93, one of the Department of Urban Affairs and Planning’s most prominent graduates, is the first recipient of the department’s newly created Robert C. Weaver Distinguished Service Award. Silver is president of the American Planning Association (APA), a 43,000-member organization that provides leadership in community development.

The award was presented during a ceremony held September 16th at Hunter’s newly restored Roosevelt House Institute for Public Policy. The event also introduced the department’s new Urban Dialogue series, which recognizes trailblazers in urban planning and policy who uphold the ideals of Hunter’s Urban Affairs and Planning Department – in particular, innovation, advocacy and commitment to diversity.

Mitchell Silver receiving the Robert C. Weaver award from Dr. Sigmund Shipp

Silver is currently director of city planning in Raleigh, N.C. He has served as deputy director in the Office of Planning in Washington, D.C.; Northern Manhattan planning and policy director for the Manhattan Borough President’s office; a planner in the New York City Planning Department, and president of the New York Metro APA Chapter. Articles by him have been featured in Time.com, New York Times, Planning Magazine, CNBC.com, The Triangle Business Journal, Crain’s Business Journal and on National Public Radio.

The Urban Affairs and Planning faculty created the Weaver Distinguished Service Award in honor of Robert C. Weaver (1907-97), who served as a distinguished professor in Hunter’s UAP department from 1970 to 1978. Dr. Weaver was nationally recognized for his pioneering innovations in housing policy. In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson named him as the first secretary of the newly created U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, making him the first African American to serve in a presidential cabinet.

The inaugural Urban Dialogue was titled Planning and the Community: A Conversation with Mitch Silver and featured a conversation between Silver and Eugenie Birch, his former professor and mentor. Birch, a former chair of Hunter UAP, currently serves as chair of the Graduate Group and co-director of the Institute for Urban Research at the University of Pennsylvania. At one point in the dialogue, Silver laid out what many in the audience recognized as a new direction for planners: “We need to become a profession of big thinkers again, visionaries who think in the long term... We need to fall back in love with planning.”

Joseph Viteritti, Chair of Hunter UAP, summed up the ceremony, saying “What began as an event to recognize the work of one of our most accomplished alums, Mitch Silver, grew into an opportunity to celebrate Robert Weaver, the distinguished history of our department, and our common sense of purpose.”

A collaborative study between UAP’s Prof. W. Milczarski and Sociology Prof. P Tuckel exams the incidence of pedestrian-cyclist accidents. The study, the first of its kind, on behalf of the Stuart C. Gruskin Family Foundation, reveals the alarming news is that there are about 1,000 such accidents each year in New York State alone and that 55% of them occur in New York City. The report concluded that “pedestrian-cyclist accidents are far more common occurrences than previously thought and that government and public health officials need to pay more attention to this phenomenon…”

Graduate students from the MUP Program released their detailed report Beyond the Backlash: Equity and Participation in Bicycle Planning. The bicycle studio spent nine months studying the history and practices of bicycle planning, identified the challenges facing the expansion of bicycle lanes, and made recommendations that would affect the roles of the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT), cycling advocates, and community boards. In response to recent controversies over bike lanes, the group proposes new approaches to serve the needs of current and future cyclists and ensure the longevity of bicycle planning under future administrations.

Professor Jill Simone Gross, Director of MS in Urban Affairs, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to conduct research in the European Union during the Spring 2012 semester. Her research will examine the implications of European Union law on migrant inclusion in cities. She will travel between two national migrant hubs in Europe: London and Dublin, with shorter trips to Amsterdam to gather information on how these laws intersect with local inclusion policies to create what appears to be a type of "urban citizenship" separate and apart from more traditional notions of national citizenship. Read more>>

UAP Chair, Professor Joseph P. Viteritti is quoted in the NYTimes article that reviews a poll on Mayor Bloomberg's record on education. "Some people wind up in better schools than others, and it continues to break down by race and class." The article is one of several discussions among education leaders leading up to the start of the 2011-2011 academic year. Professor Viteritti was part of a panel earlier this month sponsored by City Hall News.