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Contents 3 | What is SPINE? What is SPA?
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| Who We Are
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| SPA Events
16 | Op-Eds
26 | Professor Profile
32 | Student Work
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| Crossword Puzzle
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| New Orleans
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What is SPINE The spine is a series of bones that interlock and stack on top of each other to enable not just support, but movement. Humans could not push their bodies to their limits without having support. What does it mean to support something so large, complex, and dynamic? The aims of this magazine are to engage, explore, and reexamine the backbone of cities/communities. While the visual and the physical elements of the city are important and will come up, we want to investigate the dynamism we don’t always see. We want to investigate the things that are influential but not necessarily starting or ending in the physical. We encourage you to join us as we explore the lives of the people in planning and the ways in which they try and support cities/communities. We encourage you to have a little SPINE. Written and designed by Ucha Abbah and Abigale Mullet
What is SPA The Student Planners Association is a student-run, pre-professional organization that represents graduate and undergraduate students in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia. SPA hosts several professional development, social, and service events each semester. The goals of these events are to create well rounded professionals who leave the university with not only a network, but also new paths to develop their skill sets and a sense of community. Every year the American Planning Association holds a national Conference which is a great opportunity for planners. SPA members receive funding for local conferences and are usually APA members also. These conferences offer a chance for planners to expand their networks and join in on relevant conversations in the field. SPA is an organization that welcomes all and hopes to see you soon! 3
Who We Are
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Who We Are
Alyson Oliver President Alyson is a second year Urban and Environmental Planning student with a concentration in Historic Preservation. Before coming to UVA,she received her Bachelor of Urban Planning and Development from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Her favorite city is Copenhagen and in her spare time she enjoys spending weekends in Richmond with her husband and sassy beagle. Her favorite SPA memory was kicking off the karaoke social event last year with an Aaron Carter jam(there is a video).If she had to be an ice cream flavor she would be Cherry Garcia!
Abbey Mullet Vice President Abbey is a first year Urban and Environmental Planning student with a concentration in Urban Design. Before coming to UVA she went to the University of Arkansas for an undergraduate degree in Architecture. Her favorite city is Chicago, because it is a large city without being too overwhelming. Her favorite SPA memory is the meet-up with VCU because she was able to meet planning students from another school. If she had to be an ice cream flavor she would be vanilla ice cream with toffee and sprinkles on top from Graeter’s Ice Cream specifically.
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Ucha Abbah Marketing Ucha is a first year Urban and Environmental Planning student with an interest in Sustainable Community Design. She is from Dallas, Texas and studied Human Rights and Environmental Studies at Southern Methodist University. In her spare time she enjoys volunteering, going to shows, reading, and listening to podcasts. Her favorite city is Denver, Colorado and her favorite SPA memory was the VCU meet-up because she had never been to a vineyard before. If she had to be ice cream she would be cookies and cream with fudge and whip cream.
Kara Krantz 100 Mile Thanksgiving Coordinator Kara is a second year Urban and Environmental planning student from Haymarket, Virginia. She is the 100 Mile Thanksgiving Coordinator for SPA, which also happens to be her favorite SPA memory. She doesn't have a favorite city yet; she is hoping that once she has more free time after graduation that she will be able to travel around and find a favorite city! She found picking one ice cream flavor to be quite challenging, but if she had to pick one she would probably be coffee ice cream with chocolate chips, hot fudge, and whipped cream on top. 7
Marnissa Claflin APA Representative Marnissa is a first year Urban and Environmental Planning student and an Idaho native. She is an explorer and knowledge-seeker with a love for the outdoors, animals, good food, and good beverage. Her excitement ignites over mathematics, backpacking, cities, architecture, and making the world a more enjoyable place to live. Her favorite city is Verona, Italy. She loves Verona because of its ability to foster unexpected friendships, its phenomenal wine and food, and the best musical experience she has ever had in her life (ask her all about it, she loves to tell stories). Her favorite SPA memory was cleaning the lounge this Fall. It was incredible for her what a few dedicated humans with a variety of skills can accomplish in just a few hours. If she were an ice cream flavor she would be rose gelato, just because it's her favorite thing ever. No toppings, just sweet and soft, delicate and flavorful, invigorating and addicting.
Elizabeth Nowak APA Representative Elizabeth is a second year in Urban and Environmental planning masters program with a concentration in Historic Preservation. Elizabeth enjoys planning epic vacations to countries she will never visit, bookmarking cooking recipes that require far too many ingredients, and watching Parks & Rec on repeat. Her favorite city is Tokyo. When asked why, she reportedly said, “I have never been anywhere so clean, so green, so vibrant and historic, and also find high quality horse sashimi.” Her favorite SPA memory, to date, was the 2016 100 Mile Thanksgiving when an alum wrote and performed a song for Daphne Spain. If she were an ice cream, she would be Bubble Gum Dippin’ Dots— she’s the future, but now!
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Haley Lloyd Social Committee Haley is a second year Urban and Environmental Planning student with an Environmental Management and Conservation concentration. She enjoys skiing,cartography, and making pizza. Her favorite city is Park City, Utah. The most memorable SPA moment for her was 100 mile thanksgiving. If she had to be an ice cream flavor it’s a toss-up between chocolate chip cookie dough and Superman. No need for toppings!
Tori Kanellopoulos General Member Tori is a second year Urban and Environmental Planning student with a concentration in Housing and Community Development. Outside of planning, her interests include hiking, frisbee, and reading for fun. She loves dogs and has a one year old Golden Retriever named River. Her favorite city is Barcelona,Spain and her favorite SPA memory was getting to travel to NYC for the APA conference. If she had to be an ice cream flavor she would be coffee flavored ice cream with Oreos on top.
Thomas Morley Secretary Thomas is a first year Urban and Environmental planning student from Richmond, VA. He went to Syracuse University and studied Geography and Political Science. He is a first year Urban and Environmental Planning student interested in Transportation and Land Use. He loves reading novels, hiking, biking, and soccer! His favorite city is Ithaca, NY. Favorite SPA memory is 100-Mile Thanksgiving. If he were ice cream, he would be Lactose-Free Mint-Chocolate Chip, an adequate version of which he has yet to find :( 9
SPA Events
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SPA Events
Parking Day -
September 2017
Parking Day was our first SPA event of the year. A national event held once a year in September is an opportunity to rethink how street parking spaces could be used. Whether you drive, walk, or bike parking is a significant issue. Where it should be located and how much is needed can be sources of stress, especially in dense urban areas. One question about parking to think about is if we even need it? Parking day is an opportunity to get creative with how we reenvision parking. Last September we decided to relax, do homework, and play games. What was once two parking spaces a hang out spot for SPA!
100 Mile Thanksgiving -
November 2017
Last November we, SPA and the School of Architecture, came together to eat food with our friends and colleagues. The rule of the dinner is that the main ingredient of all foods brought to the event has to be sourced from within a 100 miles of Charlottesville. While this sounds limiting, the dinner turned up several breads, casseroles, soups, pies, and cakes. We even had three students from the A-School share their talents with us. Mennen and Rachel sang covers of songs, while Marvin recited some original poetry. Professors brought their families and students brought their friends and it was a time to relax and enjoy seeing each other in a calm and non academic setting. 12
When MUEP Meets MURP -
October 2017
Last Fall the planners at the University of Virginia decided to meet up with the planners at Virginia Commonwealth University for a social. We found ourselves on a Saturday in October at the beautiful Cooper Hill Vineyards, located halfway between UVA and VCU. Over assortments of cheese and crackers we discussed the differences in our programs and even exchanged instagrams. It was nice to make connections both personal and professional with VCU SPA. We have stayed in contact and have plans to continue meetups this Spring 2018, so stay tuned!
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Gingerbread Houses -
December 2017
To break up some of the stress of finals SPA decided to host a gingerbread house competition right inside the A-School. It was a great time to be distracted, channel creative energy, and eat scraps if you’re like me. It was a competition open to any student interested in participating. The five houses built were made by students dedicated to seeing their homes through, other planners stopped by to say hello and check out the structures. Rachel, one of the student planners, even took hers home. Sometimes the small things, like building homes made of food, can help you get through finals week. We plan to raise the stakes of next year’s competition!
Rake-A-Thon -
October 2017
Planners and Historians came together for the 5th Annual Charlottesville rake-a-thon. We split up into a morning and an afternoon shift that included our department chair Ellen. The rake-a-thon is organized by Habitat for Humanity and in 2016 raised $10,000 with over 400 rakers present. The money collected from last years event helped to build homes for those who needed them. These rake-a-thons are comprised of high school students, college students, and local families. The two teams managed to get through two homes before calling it a day. It was a great opportunity to get to know another discipline in the Architecture school while also raising money for Habitat for Humanity. 14
AICP -
December 2017
Dinner and trips to vineyards are fun, but SPA is also committed to developing the professional side as well as the network of students. Our APA representatives brought Andrew Hopewell to come and speak with us about how the new AICP Candidate Program works and how the AICP certification works in general. Having this certification is great for planners as it makes them competitive, keeps them current on ethical standards, and has financial benefits. The candidate program has a mentoring component to really help students navigate the nuance of the exam and application. Hopewell was quite informative as he laid down the exam structure, cost, pass rate, and sources of study material for it. The APA website also has information about the exam and this new program.
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Op-Eds
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Op-Eds
Nothing About Us Without Us What does it mean for the planner not to be an advocate? The planner working in the private sector and the planner working for a local nonprofit may see themselves operating out of completely different and even oppositional playbooks. The theories involved in developing the profession have evolved over time, but not too long ago the field of urban planning used zoning to perpetuate segregation. Reading what is considered the fundamental theories of this field makes it clear that the voices of white cisgender men have been the mortar. As urban planning ages and planners continue to step out onto the national and international stages we should reflect on what the aims of our work should be and if we are setting ourselves up to get there. Should planners who are not truly culturally competent be working internationally or even in certain local communities? Who decides who gets to hold the mic and in what spaces? Our current cabinet and even local government positions are filled with homogeneous populations that have not been interested in truly being representative. There is currently a gerrymandering case being looked at in Pennsylvania to make sure that districts are not drawn in ways that increase one parties political power. While the practices and intentions of those at the top are being questioned massive changes are happening from the bottom. Citizens of the United States want a representative government and its being reflected in who is running and who is coming out to vote. Danica Roem, Elizabeth Guzman, and Hala Ayala are three women who are just
the beginning of a wave of people who want their voices heard. Black women came out in waves to support Doug Jones in Alabama. People understand that while they may not have the power to do everything, they get to choose who represents them. So why does this matter? It matters because planning is political. When property values increase beyond what local businesses can pay making room for expensive artisanal coffee, planning is political. When zoning prevents certain types of housing from existing where it is truly needed, planning is political. When highways are built and referred to as forms of slum removal, planning is political. In 2018 we are still dealing with a wealth of inequalities from planning practices of the past and the present. The planners of the past were engaged in practices that were silencing and exacerbated the plight of marginalized communities, so how is the modern day planner doing to be different? Cities all around the world have very different ways of existing and performing, what does it mean to engage with these cities if our foundations of thought are Eurocentric? What does it mean to engage with citizens in the United States if we are not listening? If the way that citizens are taking to the streets and the polls is any indication, we have to not only keep up but also do better. We can’t look at other societies and judge them by our metrics, especially when our own metrics are not inclusive and culturally competent. There are planners doing work for communities in a very technocratic way that doesn’t allow for the voices of the communities being impacted. 18
If planning is political, then why would planners not be advocates? If planners are advocates how do we equip ourselves with different types of knowledge? Whose knowledge will we validate? We will have to address our biases and the truisms we have held dear. We have to be humble and acknowledge our past failures; but we also have to move into the future with the intent to do more than just apologize. Urban planning, if it aims to be for the benefit of society needs planners as advocates. It needs planners who understand that nothing about the people can be without the people.
Written by Ucha Abbah 19
The Right to the City as a Call to Action
French Marxist philosopher and urban sociologist Henri Lefebvre developed the idea of the right to the city in the late 1960s. His book ‘Le Droit à la Ville,’ or ‘The Right to the City’ in 1967, was first published in 1968, 100 years after Marx’s Capital Volume I and just before the Parisian uprisings of May 1968 (Mitchell 2003, 17). ‘Le Droit à la Ville’ was a product of Lefebvre’s investigations into urbanization processes in France during the 1960s. Massive migration to urban areas and a functionalist approach to urban planning had led to extreme changes in French spatial structures, resulting in severe social and spatial segregation. According to Lefebvre, the right to the city is a ‘cry and a demand’ (Lefebvre 1996, 158). It is a political claim that argues for an urban reform inspired on the study of current urban realities. The right to the city questions the structures of power in the urban society and criticizes the exclusion and alienation of workers from the processes of city making. It calls for a renewed urban society, where workers are part of the decision-making processes of the city. Lefebvre also characterizes the city as ‘oeuvre’ (Lefebvre 1996, 149). This French word has a broad meaning, but it can be translated as ‘work,’ as in a work
of art, the opposite of a product. An ‘oeuvre’ is unique and irreplaceable work of art made by people, while products reflect repetition and artificiality. For Lefebvre, the city as an ‘oeuvre’ should be collectively shaped by its residents. In the context of urban planning, the city as an ‘oeuvre’ challenges the strategies and practices of city making, demanding actual involvement in how decisions about the city are made, moving beyond the discourses of participation (Lefebvre 1991; Merrifield 2006; Arnstein 1969). What does Lefebvre’s right to the city mean in practice today in American cities? We are all well aware of how minorities have been not only historically excluded from the city making processes and decisions but also harmed by these same processes. The right to the city is a call to action for community members to push city administrators to listen to their voices. Is it possible though? How can residents, specifically minorities who have been oppressed and disempowered over the years, have a voice in the decisions about what their city should be? One possibility is through a process called participatory budgeting (PB). PB is a process through which community members have the opportunity to decide how to spend part of the public budget. Participatory budgeting was first put in place in 1989 by the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, for the municipal budget. Since then, PB has spread all over the world, including to the US. The process starts with a committee representative of the population in partnership with government representatives designing the process of PB, establishing rules to 20
make sure the process will meet the needs of the community and be inclusive to everyone. The second step of PB involves gathering community members to brainstorm ideas for possible projects or interventions they may want to improve their communities. Volunteers create proposals based on the brainstormed ideas. Later, residents have a chance to vote on how to allocate the budget among the proposed projects. The budget funds the winning projects. In the PB process, community members thus have the opportunity to collectively shape their city’s future, as their own ‘oeuvre.’ In 2017, BeCville, a community arts project led by Matthew Slaats, piloted the participatory budgeting process in the neighborhoods south of the downtown area in Charlottesville. First, they gathered data on how residents wanted to improve their neighborhood. The results were published in a newsletter and distributed to residents. Artists submitted project proposals based on the community’s ideas. Residents voted and selected four projects to be funded. This year we might get another chance to have a say in the future of our neighborhoods in Charlottesville. The city government is currently considering the possibility of starting a participatory budgeting process in Charlottesville. PB is a unique opportunity for community members to be able to help decide what they want for their communities! Participatory budgeting allows all residents to have an active voice in the decision-making process of what should be done to improve their neighborhood
and their town! Participatory budgeting is a chance for citizens to actively exercise their right to the city. Get involved, share your ideas, and vote! For more information check out @cvillepb on Facebook!
References cited: Arnstein, Sherry R. 1969. “A ladder of citizen participation.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35, no. 4: 216-224. Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell. Lefebvre, Henri. 1996. “The Right to the City.” In Writings on Cities, edited by Eleonore Kofman, and Elizabeth Lebas. Oxford: Blackwell.
Written by Patricia Basile 21
Energy Footprint in Shanghai
My energy footprint in the United States is significantly larger than when I worked as an intern in Shanghai, China three years ago. Using my own daily experiences I want to make a connection between energy footprints and city planning. In a typical workday I would go to the Lingkong Soho (Office) from Changshu Road (Home) by underground which is a 10 mile commute that takes 40 minutes. According to Shanghai Public Transportation Office website in just one day the tube system shipped more than 4.5 million people. I usually buy my breakfast in the tube station when I go to work and have lunch and dinner downstairs in the Lingkong’s building. After work, I go to the gym which is located at the top floor of the office building. After ten, I catch the tube to go home. The tube in our city usually runs from 5.30 am to 10.30 pm. The office building I worked in was a green building. According to the Lingkong Soho Office, the hightechnological façade of the building filters 90% PM 2.5. It has a large roof garden and the water recycle rate within the office building is more than 50%. In fact, there are more than 28,000 people working in this Soho within an area of 926,000 square feet. The connections with Hongqiao Railway station and tube stations make using public transportation possibly the best choice. The cost of the tube for my distance is 0.46 USD (equal or less than 16km) compared to driving (0.9 USD gasoline for 16 km), which makes it cheaper and helps avoid
it cheaper and helps avoid congestion. If I go back to my hometown to visit my parents, I will still choose railway which runs every 10-15 min between Nanjing and Shanghai between 6.40 am to 11.19 pm, with the distance of 174.1 mile. It takes around 1h 22 min for the whole distance with the price of 20.3 USD. These reasons make public transportation many people’s priority and help to reduce individual footprints. Sources http://skysoho.sohochina.com/office http://www.12306.cn/mormhweb/ https://zhidao.baidu.com/ question/2137349434405613628.html
Written by Cindy
A typical workday Commuting distance - 10 miles Commuting time - 40 minutes
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Retail and Restaurants in Office Building
Retail and Restaurants in Tube System
Retail and Restaurants in Tube System
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Rebuilding Stronger Roundtable
The Student Planners Association was invited to attend Rebuilding Stronger: Roundtable with Happy Johnson on Friday, January 19th in Newcomb Hall. The event included UVA students and staff from across the university—including representatives from the Cavalier Daily, the UVA Office for Sustainability, UVA’s Office of African American Affairs, University Dining, and the Minority Rights Coalition—as well as members of the community and representatives from the City of Charlottesville. The Roundtable was part of the annual Community Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration series. Happy Johnson is a children’s author and humanitarian who currently works in New Orleans. Johnson was interning at the White House when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005. He packed up his political career, and flew to the flooded city to help in the relief efforts. Through his experience and training and driving emergency response vehicles and facilitating conversations in schools and communities, he realized that vulnerable communities needed to be better prepared for natural disasters, especially the children, the next generation of first responders. Out of this disparity, the Team Happy Foundation was founded to “develop civic leadership through literacy programs” (teamhappy. org, “about”). The foundation has widespread efforts including volunteering and providing emergency supplies, teaching disaster resiliency strategies and publishing and donating children’s books. All of these efforts operate under the mission and belief “that youth can be a catalyst toward engendering a
society that more actively embraces hurricane preparedness and wetlands restoration” (teamhappy.org, “about”). Happy’s newest foundation Sustain the Nine expands his previous efforts and “focuses on coastal rehabilitation, greening the built environment, and increasing food security” (sustainthenine. org, “mission-values”) in the Lower 9th ward of New Orleans. The Roundtable began genuinely and vulnerably with a trumpet performance by Happy. He talked, and played, through his whole process; warming up, increasing in complexity, and coming to a finale, a full song. Happy courageously embraced the fact that he is just learning and let us watch him succeed, fail, and recover. When he was unable to hit the notes for the last few measures of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”, he improvised and began to sing instead. This incredible display served as a launchpad into a group discussion to answer the question, what is leadership? We talked through our personal characteristics of a leader and revised as the discussion evolved. Happy refrained from creating a single definition of leadership, but resounding themes included empathy, optimism, facilitating change, compiling teams appropriate for solving a particular problem, and fearlessness in pursuing the realization of a vision. Leadership proved challenging to define, but Happy succinctly defined sustainability in a way that is broadly applicable and simultaneously eyeopening. He candidly said, “sustainability is the preservation of the human spirit.” Everyone’s jaw dropped. As planners 24
and designers, we tend to gravitate towards the environmental component of sustainability, as do many other fields, but there are many additional facets that also contribute to the well-being of the humans and their spirits—including communities, traditions, and spaces— which ultimately compose our cities and shape our world. Engagement quickly emerged as a control point for this definition of sustainability. Happy described how New Orleans’ sees itself as a city of people who genuinely care when they wish you “good morning” along the street. This approach is critical for New Orleans’ human-spirit resilience and separates it from most other cities. We concluded that in order to facilitate a shift towards human-centered cities, a seed needs to be found, some catalyst that fosters connectivity and vulnerability. In New Orleans, that seed is food, but each seed must be unique to each place, encourage and facilitate trust, and inspire curiosity about other people’s lives and perspectives. Vulnerable and honest dialogue will be needed to continue to move sustainability discussions forward. Trust takes a significant amount of time to build and a much shorter amount of time to lose. However, trust and relationships are essential for improving community stability. Instead of rushing to solve a problem, we must learn how to understand the gravity of these problems and develop a way to initiate healing and move forward together into a new, better world. In order to build a house of trust, we first have to excavate; we have to dig up all of the skeletons before we
can get to the bedrock and have a solid foundation. We are all connected, both backwards and forwards, but we must remember, as Happy mentioned several times, that “the things that divide us don’t even come close to the thing that unite us.”
Written and attended by Marnissa Claflin and Tori Kanellopoulos 25
Professor Profile
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Professor Profile
Ellen M. Bassett is a woman of many hats both scholar and gardener, mentor and electric bike enthusiast. Her areas of research interest and expertise are land use planning and law, climate change planning, health and the built environment, and international development. We decided to sit down and learn a little about the woman behind the long list of awards and accomplishments. Q. What three words do you think best encapsulate planning? A. Optimism, caring, and respect. Ellen believes planners go into this profession because they are trying to make things better, equity is a core value. Typically you go into planning because you are an idealist. Pragmatism isn’t what will get you up in the morning. Q. What is your favorite thing about being a planner? A. The primary hat that Ellen wears is as an academic. Teaching within the discipline because she gets to work with the future generations. While she can’t work for the EPA or HUD, her students can and she enjoys keeping up with all of their projects. One of the things that she enjoys is seeing promotions and the positive things happening to her students on LinkedIn. Q. If you could go back in time and become your favorite planner who would you be and why? (Not Jane Jacobs) A. Jane Addams, she was an amazing woman for her time. She was a proto-planner, she established Hull House before there was an established profession—either planning or social work—for this type of work. She was an activist working with really vulnerable populations. Q. What is your favorite book on planning? A.1 - Nature’s Metropolis by William Cronon. It is about how boosters and savvy leadership made Chicago and its relationship with its surrounding natural resources. 2 - Origins of the Urban Crisis, by Thomas Sugrue. It is a really great book on race relations and job discrimination and the link to the decline of Detroit. He takes issue with those who argue that the race riots of the late 1960s were the “beginning of the end”— they were just the culmination of long discriminatory practices. Q. How did you find the profession of planning? A. She stumbled upon planning while looking at a flyer at the University of Wisconsin where she was studying for an advanced degree in history. She already had an interest in cities which helped. Planning interested her more than public policy because it spoke to her core values. 28
Q. Have you ever questioned if planning was truly what you wanted to do and if so how did you decide ultimately that it was worth pursuing? A. Yes, of course. When she was in Africa she realized that a lot of what she was working on was not immediately tangible—unlike her partner (a surgeon) where you can see immediately the impact of the work being done. Despite the distance between action and impact, she loves planning because of all the problem solving we can do. Q. In what ways can planners develop themselves and their skillset in order to meet the demands of the field post-graduation? A. In many cases planners will learn a lot of the work on the job. Keeping up with APA is always helpful for planners (so continuing ed). Changes in technology and consumer data may become interesting to planners and require new skills. Q. What issues are going unaddressed that you think planners will need to start focusing on moving forward? A. “We aren’t really ready for climate change”. In order to be more prepared, Ellen believes we need to step out of our comfort zone and get political. We really need to have these difficult discussions and work in spaces we currently aren’t in. Many discussions would be different if planners were involved, she would love to see planners even run for public office. Also, racial misunderstandings and that “we need to become more comfortable talking about it and answering the tough questions”. We need to be able to sit and be uncomfortable and work on that. Q. What project have you worked on that really resonated with you? A. The 5.5 years Ellen lived in Kenya was a very transformative experience for her. Working with squatters and non-official land owners in Kenya taught her a lot about land ownership’s relationship to sense of belonging and power. While she was there the community she was working with decided to hold land together and worked together to make sure they all had the documents they needed. They even demolished and rebuilt their settlement together to conform to a grid plan. Q. Has advising students influenced the ways in which you approach planning and if so how? A. Interacting with students in general has exposed her to new communities with needs that she has never been exposed to before. Through her students she feels she gets to see the world.
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Q. Since the Global South encompasses cities on different continents, what sparked your interest in Africa specifically? A. While she was at Wisconsin, a good friend in grad school had just come back from what was then Zaire. She applied to the Peace Corps program because she was interested in development and conflict, originally she was more interested in South America but ended up asking for Africa. She was assigned to Kenya and loved her experience there, she ended up living in Uganda for 4.5 additional years. She loved living in another culture and learning the different ways they perceive the world and communicate. While in Kenya she learned Swahili and felt very comfortable. Ellen understood her privilege as a white woman and worked hard to shed, she constantly reminded herself to remain aware of what she didn’t know. She found that because of her time in Kenya she has become a much better listener. By the time she left the locals would joke that her freckles were a sign that she was becoming one of them. Q. What hobbies do you enjoy when you are not in the A-school? A. Gardening! Mostly in Portland though where she can grow fruits and vegetables, the deer in C’ville make gardening difficult. She enjoys gardening because the rewards are tangible. She also enjoys readings, novels allow her to have a different life experience. Q. What is something that you would like planning students to know about you? A. She has an electric bike and believes everyone should have one, feel free to ask to test drive hers. Q. If there was no limit for the department Ellen’s vision would… A. Expand the number of faculty members, diversify the student and faculty populations, increase support to help students afford to work at their dream non-paid summer internships, and a lab space in the building for planning students to reinforce the collaborative spirit of the discipline. She also hopes for students to have a closer relationship with the Alumni, she would love for them to come to classes or just to be advocates outside of the school.
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Student Work
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Student Work
Student Work IX Park Redesign
- By Tori Kanellopoulos
The goal of this class was to use principles of urban design to rethink and re-design an area in the city of Charlottesville. Areas were chosen from within Charlottesville’s Small Area Plans. Redesigns focused on improving walkability, considering corridors as public spaces, and improving transportation access and mobility. The redesign is focused at the neighborhood scale.
development. The new grid system increases both intersection and residential density. This project first analyzed existing conditions in the area, as well as surrounding context. Next, it formed several iterations of redesigns. Finally, a single redesign was chosen. Urban planning theories and principles informed the design process.
This specific redesign is in the Ridge Street neighborhood, and includes IX Art Park and Friendship Court. This area is part of Charlottesville’s Strategic Investment Area Plan, which looks to generate economic development and promote connectivity in the Downtown and Ridge Street neighborhoods. Currently, IX Art Park is an underutilized space, with the potential for more commercial and residential development. The redesign aims to create a walkable and dense space near the Downtown Mall, with mixed use and mixed income
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Monticello Ave. Redesign
Settlement Pattern
Transect Map
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More Welcoming Entrance
Civic and Open Space
Improved Intersection Safety
Composite Map
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Urban Planning Crossword
Across
Down
2. The process of dividing land in a municipality into zones in which certain land uses are permitted or prohibited. 6. The practice of denying services, either directly or through selectivity raising prices, to residents of certain areas based on the racial or ethnic composition of those areas. 6. An American Canadian journalist, author, and activist best known for her influence on urban studies, sociology, and economics. 7. The number of dwelling units or principal buildings or uses permitted per net acre of land.
1. He conceptualized the ‘City Beautiful Movement’. 3. A wide area of parks of undeveloped land surrounding a community. 4. A 20th century problem emanating from rapid urbanization of areas surrounding a city which eats up the remaining adjacent rural open spaces.
Answer Key
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New Orleans Homes and Neighborhoods
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