2018 Manchester Fellow

The Initiative on Cities is delighted to welcome Elizabeth Champion as its Undergraduate Student Fellow for the City of Manchester, England, for the summer.

Elizabeth Champion is a sophomore studying economics in the College of Arts and Science. Avid about the economics and history of cities, she hopes to eventually pursue her Masters in City Planning. Last fall, she worked as a Community Planning Intern for the City of Boston Planning and Development Authority, where she initiated research on industrial land use. On campus, she tutors in economics courses and serves as co-president of the Global Development Community club.

What made you want to apply for the fellowship?

I signed up for the IOC newsletter and I thought that my interest in cities aligned really well with what the internship was. I interned for the City of Boston last fall and I really loved it. I thought it would be a really cool and unique opportunity to intern for a start-up city, almost. So I applied!

What are you most looking forward to this summer?

I’m most looking forward to getting to explore a new city and especially an English city, one that’s not American. I wrote my essay about public housing and policy, so I think they’re going to try to place me with the team that does that. I’ll be working for the team that does housing research but I’m not sure what the specific project is going to be.

How did you get interested in urban planning?

I grew up in Atlanta and I never really knew about urban planning until my sophomore year of high school. I decided to take a summer class because I needed a history credit to graduate and I was interested in this class called Atlanta 2.0. about planning and development issues in Atlanta. They took us around the city and they introduced us to urban leaders and they explained how Atlanta grew, redlining, racist housing policies. It was kind of a world unknown to me before this. That made me really interested in it and I ended up doing a senior project in high school on transportation planning and accessibility. I interned for the City of Boston’s Community Planning department last fall, and so this is just another extension of my passion.