McCosh Hall
10

Sponsored by the Alumni Association of Princeton University

Moderator

Anu Ramaswami
Director, M.S. Chadha Center for Contemporary Global India; Sanjay Swani ’87 Professor of India Studies; Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies and the High Meadows Environmental Institute, Princeton University

Panelists

Jim Stockard ’64
Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Richard K. Rein ’69
Editor, TAPinto Princeton Community News

Neil Hrushowy ’94
Director of Community Planning, Vancouver, Canada

Beth Gordon Zall ’04
Senior Planning Manager of the Gateway Program, Amtrak

Moderator

Anu Ramaswami
Director, M.S. Chadha Center for Contemporary Global India; Sanjay Swani ’87 Professor of India Studies; Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies and the High Meadows Environmental Institute, Princeton University

Anu Ramaswami is an interdisciplinary environmental engineer recognized as a pioneer and leader on the topic of sustainable urban infrastructure systems. Her work explores how seven key sectors — water, energy, food, buildings, mobility, connectivity, waste management and green/public spaces — shape human and environmental well-being, from local to global scales. She brings expertise across multiple disciplines, including environmental science and engineering, industrial ecology, public health and public affairs, with a human-centered and systems focus.

Panelists

Jim Stockard ’64
Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design

James Stockard has spent his career in roles focused on affordable housing. For 27 years, he was a consultant serving public agencies, nonprofits and private corporations. His work included assistance on affordable housing development, management and policy. He served as the special master for the District of Columbia Housing Authority when it was under court supervision and was the primary investigator for the “Public Housing Operating Cost Study” for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 1997, Stockard became the curator of the Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and began to teach courses in housing. While retired from the curator’s role, he continues to teach. Stockard was a commissioner of the Cambridge Housing Authority for 40 years. He serves as a trustee of the Cambridge Affordable Housing Trust and a member of the Housing Appeals Committee for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Richard K. Rein ’69
Editor, TAPinto Princeton Community News

A writer and editor with a special interest in urban issues, Richard Rein is the author of “American Urbanist,” which showed how William H. Whyte ’39 became a champion of people-oriented planning and the father of the modern placemaking movement. New York Times reviewer Alexandra Jacobs, calling the Whyte biography one of her three favorite books of 2022, noted that “at a moment when the world’s downtowns and midtowns are slowly coming back to life, this thorough and thoughtful book is an inspiring companion.” Rein serves on the board of Princeton Future, a nonprofit that encourages sustainable urbanism and inclusive policymaking. The founding editor and publisher of U.S. 1 Newspaper, Rein now edits his own hyperlocal digital news site, TAPinto Princeton Community News. Rein writes frequently about pedestrian safety, traffic and parking, the affordable housing crisis in Princeton and why “density is our friend.”

Neil Hrushowy ’94
Director of Community Planning, Vancouver, Canada

As director of community planning in the Department of Planning, Urban Design and Sustainability in Vancouver, Canada, Neil Hrushowy is responsible for developing and implementing the Vancouver Plan, a 30-year vision to manage the growth and development of the city. A key tenet of the plan is to shift the focus of growth into the historic single-family areas of the city to provide diverse and more affordable housing in compact, walkable neighborhoods where people can walk/roll, cycle and take transit to daily needs. This transformational shift centers equity and the environment and will help ensure the city grows along a more inclusive and sustainable path. Previously, Hrushowy was the principal urban designer in the San Francisco Planning Department. He also lived in Copenhagen where he taught urban design and conducted research on physically- and socially-connected neighborhoods.

Beth Gordon Zall ’04
Senior Planning Manager of the Gateway Program, Amtrak

Beth Gordon Zall’s areas of interest include transit planning and policy, rail transportation, infrastructure finance and funding, and resiliency planning. Since the summer of 2021, in her role as senior planning manager at Amtrak, Zall has worked on the Gateway Program, an infrastructure project that will modernize tracks between Newark and New York’s Penn Station. Previously, she worked for nearly 10 years at WSP, an environmental consulting company. From 2016 to 2023, Zall also taught urban transportation planning as an assistant adjunct professor at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Zall is an alumna of both Princeton University (A.B. in sociology) and the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy of Rutgers University (Master of City and Regional Planning). She serves as board chair on her municipal planning board in Millburn, New Jersey.