While working as a campus organizer for NYPIRG Lauren began to explore issues relating to funding mass transit and overall transit affordability and accessibility. During her undergraduate education at SUNY New Paltz Lauren also explored international development through her minor in international relations and her Anthropology major.
As a planner, Lauren would like to take an active role in developing sustainable policies and transportations systems not only domestically in the United States but also abroad. Lauren is specifically interested in China where she traveled in the summer 2006 studying Chinese history, politics and conducting research on desertification in Inner Mongolia. She is interested in pursuing her own research on transportation in the developing world relating to shifts in modes of transportation.
Lauren has lived in New York for most of her life and would like to work as planner in New York as a way to give back to the community. Lauren sees a great deal of potential in the capital region.
After Lauren left NYPIRG in May 2008 she began working for the Capital District Community Gardens (CDCG) on the Veggie Mobile project. The Veggie Mobile is a 16-foot box truck that operates as a mobile produce market. The project’s goal is to make produce affordable and accessible to people living in urban food deserts or who have limited mobility. This peaked Lauren’s interest in the intersections between community health, food and the role planning could take. She also is an aspiring gardener and will be battling tomato blight again this summer.
As a planner Lauren’s overarching goals are to improve our mass transit systems and work to limit dependence on automobiles for everyday tasks, like going to work or to the supermarket. Lauren would like to further study the effects of car sharing on a community. She has already completed a 30 page paper on car sharing exploring the history and current car sharing market. Lauren would like to see if car sharing, improved mass transit systems and other polices such as congestion pricing could affect congestion and overall car use in urban and suburban regions.