Green Infrastructure, Urban Planning, and Economic Development
Ellen Neises and Kevin C. Gillen
The next presentation of the Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast (CCRUN) Green Infrastructure, Climate, and Cities Seminar Series will be held on Wednesday, January 7th at 4pm at Drexel University in the Hill Conference Room. A webinar option will also be provided.
Space is limited, so please RSVP for both in-person and webinar attendance at http://www.ccrun.org/seminars
Ellen Neises teaches landscape architectural design at the University of Pennsylvania in the Graduate School of Design. With Richard Roark of OLIN, Ellen led the PennDesign / OLIN team’s work on Hunts Point Lifelines, one of the 6 winning entries in the Rebuild by Design competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. This team was recognized by the Rockefeller Foundation as one of 4 “global resiliency innovators” for its plan for Hunts Point. Ellen will present the Hunts Point Lifelines project, a design collaboration between landscape architects, hydrologists and green infrastructure engineers, marine and infrastructure engineers, economists, and the environmentally pioneering community of Hunts Point in the South Bronx. The project protects New York City’s Food Distribution Center (FDC), a major economic hub with 25,000 jobs and $5 billion in annual economic activity that feeds 22 million people. Lifelines takes a comprehensive approach to resilience, integrating flood protection and green infrastructure with new public landscapes, mobility infrastructure, green jobs, and a Levee Lab that advances applied materials science and regulatory approaches to adaptation of working waterfronts.
Kevin C. Gillen PhD is an economist who holds a position as a Senior Research Consultant with the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute of Government. With a background in urban economics and real estate finance, Dr. Gillen’s research and consulting practice is concentrated in applied work in the analysis of real estate developments and operation of real estate markets, including their fiscal, economic and financial implications. This work is deployed in advising both public and private sector entities on the costs/benefits of public policy options, as well as the design and implementation of local economic development strategies. His research in urban economics appears in numerous publications and is cited in various policy applications, and his quarterly reports on the current state of the Philadelphia region’s real estate markets receive substantial local attention.
