I got my start in City government through the NYC Urban Fellows Program, a 9-month fellowship that places a cohort of young professionals in various City agencies and divisions of the Mayor’s Office. It was through this program that I discovered a passion for municipal government and kick-started a career in public service. I believe deeply in the power of mentorship, and I continue to give back through the non-profit alumni association supporting this formative experience.

For the last two years, I have served as lead planner and project manager of City of Yes for Economic Opportunity, the most comprehensive overhaul of New York City’s commercial and industrial zoning since the 1960s. The City Council recently adopted these sweeping reforms to our land use regulations, which range from making it easier for maker-retail and experiential businesses to open in storefronts to enabling a wider range of businesses to fill underutilized office space. These updated rules make it easier to start, operate, and grow a small business in NYC, and will contribute to fostering more vibrant commercial corridors in neighborhoods across all five boroughs.

Planning is such a multi-disciplinary field that you can have a successful planning career with pretty much any training or background. Planning as a profession especially benefits from having those who have a diverse set of lived experiences and therefore approaches and perspectives to the work. But there are also many ways to get involved in planning even if it isn’t your day job. For example, NYC’s 59 Community Boards depend on resident volunteers and these appointed bodies play a vital role in both local and citywide land use decisions. Serving on your neighborhood’s Community Board – or even just attending meetings — can give you an important voice in addressing local challenges and helping to shape the future of your community and our city.

NYC has such constant dynamism — it’s part of what makes this city a global center for entrepreneurialism and innovation. My a-ha moment for realizing I was a New Yorker came when I recognized that I had lived here through multiple seasons to change – remembering when a storefront on the end of my block was occupied with a business before the most recent one. To me, part of being a New Yorker means embracing the inherent evolution of the city while still finding in my day-to-day life enough familiarity to feel at home.

One of my earliest, core memories is remembering breaking from a shell and (finally) making friends after moving to a building with a lawn where I could run around and play with kids my age. I was only seven and didn’t understand this then, but I consider that as an early influence of built environment on my life’s trajectory. Later on, the architect in me was constantly drawn to the factors that determined buildings instead of designing them, steering me towards the big-picture planning I do now. I carry my parents’ core values of hard work, service and empathy into this work and through everything else in life

Working on planning and design excellence for the largest public housing system in the country makes me beyond proud. The Open Space Masterplan– first ever comprehensive master plan in the agency’s recent history- is leading to substantial investments in NYCHA’s landscapes. The project also created a public tool to build upon agency transparency, and share the urgency and vision for revitalizing NYCHA’s open spaces. What truly stands out to me is how other city agencies, urban planning advocacies, and academic curriculums now look to these resources as an industry benchmark for best practice. Knowing that this work genuinely enhances the quality of life for New Yorkers – whether it’s a new open space revitalization project, an improved participatory design process, or an initiative that contributes to our city’s public housing and public realm goals – is immensely rewarding.

Think deeply about the process over the product. Sure, the end result might be an amazing new infrastructure or an innovative policy change, but the magic really lies in the journey to get there. Every phase of the process should make room for collaboration and coordination. Considering different perspectives is key to creating sustainable and impactful solutions. Effective planning lies in strong alignment between different teams, agencies, and sectors, working towards transforming their common priorities and goals into shared visions.

If you grew up in a different country as I did, you too, like me, might feel complicated about claiming to be New Yorker. I moved here six years ago, and for five of those years, I’ve been working for the city. I find a strange sense of comfort in the intensity of this place. And while it’s not perfect, I feel most at home to be in a place where I can walk around thinking, “What more can I do?”