The Community Planning + Visualization Lab uses a Biophilic Urbanism lens to explore the connection between people and their social, natural, and built environments and the influence this connection has on the planning process for developing sustainable, healthy, equitable, and just communities.

We examine how the nexus of land, water, and food play a role in spatial planning and community planning to make communities sustainable. In particular, we are interested in the ways community resilience is influenced by spatial distributions and prioritization processes of green and blue infrastructure (e.g., green stormwater management projects, parks, greenways, community gardens, urban farms) at the neighborhood, urban, and regional scales. We use “spatial planning models” that integrate ecological and socioeconomic indicators and consider triple bottom line community benefits (e.g., social, environmental, and economic benefits).