(CEO of Sidewalk Labs, formerly deputy mayor for econ dev, NYC under Mayor Bloomberg. Yes, perhaps more "corporate" than we are used to, but useful for us to see high-level urban decisionmaking.

Kimmelman is the New York Time critic for Architecture AND I would argue Urban Planning. His comments and insights are excellent. I have also learned from a friend that knows him that he is very approachable (good for student questions). I would love him to come!

Yglesias is an editor at Vox and longtime journalist and blogger who has become, in my opinion, the strongest voice either inside or outside professional/academic planning calling for less restrictive zoning to promote housing production and (he argues) affordability. In addition to his role in what I believe to be the most important debate in planning theory today, he exemplifies the new importance of "public intellectuals" outside the profession and planning academics to planning theory and practice.

Libby Schaaf is Mayor of Oakland and has had vigorous responses to immigration, housing, homelessness and economic development issues in a city revitalizing, but worried about displacement.  She has been an attorney, port official, city council member and economic policy advisory.  She will give insights for running a majority African american city and balancing challenges of growth and equity. 

Vishaan is the new dean of U.C. Berkeley's College of Environmental Design (starts Fall 2020), was NYC Dept. of Planning Manhattan, worked at Related, Worked at Shop Architects, founded PAU, ran Columbia U's Real Estate Program, currently his firm is the design and planning firm for Ford's Michigan Central Station Project and Sunny Side Yards in New York among other high profile projects.  Bridges Planning, Architecture and Urban Design. Dynamic speaker on cities and equity. 

Member of the California State Senate.  Is championing a bill that, if passed, would require municipalities to allow dense housing development near transit stations.  The current proposal makes special allowances for low-income areas (a revision in response to concerns about displacement).  The controversial bill would thoroughly transform California planning and establish it as a national leader in transportation/land-use integration.

Mayor of Minneapolis.  Minneapolis recently abolished the single-family zone within city limits, a move that will make multifamily housing of up to 3 units a by-right use in all of the single-family zone (a majority of the city's territory).  This is an important and quite revolutionary step in US planning.  The dynamic mayor was a supporter of this move. `

Planning faculty member at the University of Amsterdam.

Marco has expertise in four areas which I think would be of interest to our community:
1) He has extensive experience in transportation planning, including a project which involved conducting accessibility analysis in several cities across Europe.
2) He has been leading the Urban Cycling Institute, and tweets by the handle @fietsprofessor (Cycling Professor) https://twitter.com/fietsprofessor
3) He has published many seminal papers on Planning Support Systems.
4) He is a proponent to experiential and design science research approaches which would be of interest to PhD students.

With over 1,000 citations to his research (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BQsazWcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao) he is a rising star in planning research who has many interesting ideas and findings to share.

Specialties: Consulting services for communities with coal-fired power plants that are closing. Services include addressing employment and tax loss, land use redevelopment, and grant writing, with the support of the Just Transition Fund, an initiative of the Rockefeller Family Fund. Legacy city redevelopment using brownfield redevelopment tools, zoning, resiliency planning, training, grant writing, land use and land dispute research.

Taubman grad, practitioner working on social justice issues