Skill Development

Hand-Drawn Media

Drawing by hand can be an important skill for an urban planner if one wants to develop an idea quickly and effectively before moving onto the polished project.

While these are all traced and fully fleshed out drawings, the process taught me important lessons about perspective, proper contrast, and how to portray space clearest to the viewer.

Architectural Drafting

Prior to my interest in Urban Planning, I looked into becoming an architect. These projects are the result of formal drafting and model building experiences I have had. This architecture training helped me to become more detail oriented and also more technical in my urban planning designs.

Writing Sample

As industrialization swept across the world at the turn of the twentieth century, the cityscape evolved into the modern metropolis. An image formed of soaring skyscrapers, apartment living, sprawling roadways, and booming businesses. And while these aspects certainly provide a basic outline of most cities, successful cities rely more on history and potential longevity rather than their skylines. Applying the Urban Political Economy school of thought to the development of London and Paris, the outcomes of the choices made in each city’s history highlight how they diverged in quality, and how the plans made by those in power changed the cityscape permanently...

...After reading James Howard Kunstler’s The City in Mind and utilizing the Urban Political Economy school of thought, the question remains; is short-term sacrifice from the working class worth long-term sustainability in a city? Paris may be the pinnacle of successful urban design, but it was made so without empathy for those living there. And while London rebuilt its streets to avoid political conflict, its people had to suffer through decades of poor living conditions as a result. Applying the Urban Political Economy outlook on Paris and London shows how the mistakes and achievements made by those in power affected the layout of the two spaces permanently. As London made the mistake of reverting back to its layout before the fire, it diverged from the spacious and charming plan of Paris and created two cities so completely different despite how similar they were to start. Both cities are prime examples of how city development by no means follows a natural process. It falls in the hands of the powerful and is shaped almost entirely by the decisions of the few.