A Farewell Letter From the Editor – Patrick Spauster

Dear Readers,

What an absolute pleasure it has been to edit the Wagner Planner this past year. I’m incredibly proud of all our writers and contributors, who put together an impressive library of content. I will miss working with them dearly, and interfacing with our readers about fascinating urban planning stories.

I took over last year from the amazing Charley Cohen. When the year began, I had ambitions to expand our pool of writers, invite guests, and continue expanding our visual and audio storytelling. Over that time, we published 20 stories, 3 podcasts, and 10 newsletters. We published data visualizations, explainers, op eds, reported stories, long form magazine articles, and timely academic pieces. 

Writing is a team effort and a labor of love. I learned a tremendous amount working with our brilliant writers, who pushed me creatively every week. To become a better editor along the way, and help students express their ideas has been an absolute privilege.

I’d like to give special thanks to our audio editor Ben Listman, who created and nurtured the Wagner Planner Podcast into a main feature of the Planner. Thanks to Edwin Jeng and Manal Bawazir, who worked tirelessly to track down all the most interesting urban planning articles and package them into an easy-to-read newsletter. Thank you to all our writers for their patience with my editing and their bravery to share their ideas. Finally, an especially big thanks to Jake Mericle, Emily Speelman, and Calley Wang, who will be taking over leadership of the planner next year.

Wagner planning students have a lot to say, and this new leadership team will build capacity to publish more and give all the Planner’s products the attention they deserve. Jake, Emily, and Calley have made vital contributions to the Planner over the last year, keeping us organized and posted, and each contributing well-researched, high quality written work. I’m excited to see how they grow and shape the Planner in their vision.

For me, I plan to keep writing and I hope you will keep following along. My freelance journalism, focused on housing, urban planning, and data stories, appears in Bloomberg, City Limits, Streetsblog, and elsewhere. You can keep up with my work by following me on Twitter, connecting on LinkedIn, or getting my work directly in your inbox.

I will still be around NYU Wagner. This fall, I’ll be co-instructing our Data Analysis, Mapping, and Storytelling class for first-year urban planners. I can’t wait to meet some of those future readers and work with them to develop their own voice.

Thanks for your continued readership. It’s been an honor to help build this community and I’m excited to continue to follow along as a reader in the years to come.

Earnestly,

Patrick Spauster