Welcome to my web site
My name is Francis and I recently earned a Master of Science in Urban Planning degree at Columbia University, 2011. I am interested in community and economic development, having worked on the People's Plan for the 9th Ward with the New Orleans Planning Initiative and assisted with local economic development projects in the Philippines. I hold a BS in Urban and Regional Studies, with a minor in Information Science, from Cornell University.
I hope this web site will help you get to know me better, either through my resume, my past coursework, or my academic and personal projects.
I would like to share my favorite quote, which I feel exemplifies both the importance of planning for communities and
the method of using rhizomatic processes:
Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome.
The part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition.
When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity.
Yet I have never lost the sense of something that lives and endures beneath the eternal flux. What we see is blossom, which passes.
The rhizome remains.
-Carl Jung, Prologue from "Memories, Dreams, Reflections"