Planning Expert Robert D. Yaro to Speak at K-STATE

The College of
Architecture, Planning & Design // K-State

PRESS RELEASE

Contact:  Professor and Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning Department Head Stephanie A. Rolley, FASLA, AICP (785) 532-5961, srolley@k-state.edu

Thursday, February 3, 2011

PLANNING EXPERT ROBERT D. YARO TO SPEAK AT K-STATE

MANHATTAN - Planning expert Robert D. Yaro will deliver the lecture “Making High Speed Rail Work for the United States” on February 7, 2011 at K-State. Yaro is Co-Chair of America 2050, a national initiative to meet the infrastructure, economic development and environmental challenges presented by an expected domestic population growth of approximately 130 million people by the year 2050. America 2050’s primary focus is on the emergence of “megaregions,” large networks of metropolitan areas that are expected to have particularly high population growth.

Yaro is also the President of Regional Plan Association (“RPA”), America’s oldest independent metropolitan policy, research and advocacy group. Based in New York City, RPA promotes plans, policies and investments needed to improve the quality of life and competitiveness of the New York Metropolitan Region. Yaro also co-chairs the Empire State Transportation Alliance, an independent group of New York’s civic, business, transportation and environmental leaders, and the Friends of Moynihan Station, a coalition of leading civic organizations, business groups and elected officials advocating the construction of a new train station on the site of New York’s existing Penn Station and Post Office Building. He is a member of the steering committee of the Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York, a broad-based coalition of civic groups formed to guide redevelopment in Lower Manhattan in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. In 2006, Yaro was appointed to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Sustainability Advisory Board and helped prepare PlaNYC 2030, New York City’s long-range sustainability plan.

Since 2001, Yaro has been Professor of Practice in City & Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. He also taught at Harvard University and the University of Massachusetts, where he served as Director of the University’s Center for Rural Massachusetts and initiated Growing Smart in Massachusetts, the nation’s first smart growth initiative.

Yaro serves on the Board of Directors of the Forum for Urban Design, which promotes awareness of contemporary urban design best practices and challenges. He is also an honorary member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, the UK’s leading planning body for spatial, sustainable, integrative and inclusive planning.

Yaro holds a Master’s Degree in City and Regional Planning from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Urban Studies from Wesleyan University.

The lecture will begin at 3:30 p.m. in the Little Theater at the K-State Union. The event is open to the public and free of charge.

For more information, please visit http://www.capd.k-state.edu/event-details/1706.

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