Mikaela congratulates:
Our fellow planner and alumnus of the UNM Community and Regional Planning Program, Moises Gonzales, has received a MAJOR honor and opportunity to go to Harvard for a year as a Loeb Fellow. Way to go, Moises! Sprinkle some Raza alma in Boston, would you?
From the NMAPA:
P.S. This was m-pyre's 1000th post! Woo-hoo!Moises Gonzales, who works for Sandoval County in New Mexico, has been named a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University’s Design School. Moises will be in residence at Harvard for the 2007-2008 academic year.
The Loeb Fellowship is the only one of its kind in the nation. Founded in 1970, it provides a year of independent study at Harvard for outstanding mid-career professionals in fields related to the built and natural environment. Primarily the focus is on architects, landscape architects, urban planners, and urban designers. Professionals in related fields such as filmmaking, journalism, non-profit administration, the arts, and government service have also been Loeb Fellows.
Moises Gonzales is an Urban Planner/Natural Resources Planner currently working for Sandoval County, New Mexico which is the fastest growing county in the state. His work has focused on new zoning strategies, planning regimens, and urban design tools that will encourage increased density within urban centers, concentrating development around transit nodes to reduce low density sprawl. Governor Bill Richardson has appointed him to the “Our Futures, Our Communities” Task Force on Smart Growth to develop legislative strategies addressing the impact of sprawl statewide.
Moises’ more recent passion for reducing the negative impacts of urban development in the West on traditional rural communities, has come from the work early in his career that focused on preserving cultural landscapes and historic communities in Northern New Mexico. Moises served as the Executive Director of the Mexicano Land Education and Conservation Trust, an organization that works in New Mexico “ejido” land grant communities where traditional Chicano communities manage communal land and water resources. Moises’ work was dedicated to preservation of traditional landscapes and plazas, improving housing conditions, and sustaining rural agricultural systems. More recently, he has been focusing on urban planning issues, out of the conviction that if the Albuquerque Metro Area becomes a more vibrant and exciting place, fewer people will want to flee to the sprawling suburbs.
At the Graduate School of Design, Moises will study patterns of urban development and urban design strategies around the world, concentrating on methods others have used to protect fragile cultural and natural landscapes and limit sprawl.
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