Your humble staff.
The on-the-ground work of our local advisory boards is supported by a mighty staff of one and a half plus interns.
Join us - become an intern; we're looking for people in Boston, Chicago, New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. Check out the job listing here.
Brendan Crain [e-mail me]
Chicago Director of Content
Brendan Crain graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Honors College with a BA in English in August of 2006, and is currently the Chicago Director of Content for Neighbors Project. He is a people person, and has an intense, related interest in urbanism. This, mixed with some youthful idealism, has led him to decide that he will attempt to make "Urbanist" into a career (A non-academic one, because the thought of being an academic bores him to tears).
Brendan started his blog, Where, as part of this process, and found that it has been a fantastic investment of time as he has made some great connections and learned a great deal about cities and urban policy around the world. He admits that part of the appeal of his chosen career path is the fact that he will get to make it up as he goes along (which also happens to be part of the appeal of blogging). Brendan likes taking calculated risks, and thinks that Americans' obsessions with safety, political correctness, and antibacterial soap are what's causing the decline of innovation in our society.
Kit Hodge [e-mail me]
CEO
Bay Area Advisory Board Member
National Board Member
I am a co-founder of Neighbors Project and have been the main force behind the development of the movement. I grew up in Chicago in West Lakeview and then Hyde Park, and was fortunate to have parents who knew how to get the most out of a big city and a modest income. Looking back, I realize that I was an unwitting participant in a number of social experiments/afterschool activities designed to improve race relations in Chicago. It stuck, and I eventually took my interest in cities and race and class relationships to Boston, where I studied American history and music at Harvard College. I pretty much spent the four years studying cities, movements and organizations in history and in real time, graduating magna cum laude in 2000.
After college I spent a year working for a consulting firm in Boston during the day and wandering around the metropolitan area all night. Boston seemed too small so I moved to New York City in August 2001 and fell into working as the Events and Membership Director for Transportation Alternatives, where I did everything from organize the NYC Century Bike Tour to edit the organization's quarterly magazine. I took graduate classes in Urban Studies at Columbia University and NYU at night to help me see beyond the Chicago way of looking at cities. In 2004 I made the unusual switch to running campaigns at Transportation Alternatives, focusing on pedestrian safety and neighborhood centers. In my free time, I got involved in local neighborhood goings on in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where I lived. The nasty, public fight over the prospect of a neighborhood IKEA opened my eyes to what happens when neighbors of different backgrounds don't talk on a regular basis. I decided I wanted to ensure that the destructive in-fighting that divided Red Hook didn't happen anywhere else.
But first I moved to Chicago in August 2005, where I continued working on transportation and land use advocacy at the Metropolitan Planning Council. In my spare time there I began creating the raw stuff of Neighbors Project, talking to thoughtful friends from around the country, and then organizing them into the seed board of Neighbors Project. Thanks to all of the inspiring and energetic volunteers who took Neighbors Project in new, interesting directions, our movement gathered so much momentum that I could no longer sustain essentially working two jobs, so I took the leap and began working full-time on Neighbors Project in August 2007. Shortly thereafter I moved to San Francisco to reunite with my long-time boyfriend/now-husband, and see more sunlight. I now live in Duboce Triangle, where I am on the board of the excellent Duboce Triangle Neighborhood Association, and spend a lot of time avoiding hills.
Follow me on Twitter.
Alyssa Keil
Boston Writing Intern
Bio on its way ...
Robin Peterson
Chicago Writing Intern
Get to know me on my first ever Neighbors Project blog post.
Casey Scieszka [e-mail me]
San Francisco Writing Intern
Casey is a native Brooklyn-er who grew up riding the back of a granny cart. But she is also a long-time Californian, having gone to college at Pitzer in Southern California. So she's not blinded by the sun in San Francisco. In fact, she's not really daunted by anything: She's taught in English in Beijing, done research for a Fulbright in Mali, including the ever mysterious Timbuktu, and is old hat in Morocco. She now lives in Cole Valley, and can be frequently found on the bus (though, despite what this photo suggests, not screaming into her phone).
Casey researches and writes excellent guides to life in San Francisco based on our Neighbors Checklist. And has fabulous purple heels.