Coffee with Annie White, Director of Real Estate + Economic Development

Annie in her office. Artwork by Noah MacMillan.

We grabbed coffee with Annie White to talk about her experiences in promoting equity, economic development, and her Midwestern pride! We also got some great stories about some of Annie’s favorite odd jobs over the years.

Annie is the Director of Real Estate and Economic Development at Karp Strategies and joined us after six years at the NYC Department of City Planning. Annie is a big advocate of the importance of recognizing inequitable systems at play in our built environment and working towards creating more equitable systems in their place, as well as engaging the community in this process.

Why did you join Karp Strategies?

I was incredibly excited to join Karp Strategies because I was looking forward to being part of a small but growing and active team. I loved the idea that there was enough space for me to take on the work I wanted to take on while being supported by the leadership team. Also, after working in NYC government, I wanted to have the opportunity to work more on a regional basis and learn more about the offshore wind industry in general. As Director, I have gotten to engage in more real estate planning work (such as zoning analyses, market analyses, land use studies, etc.) and have been able to work on community engagement to ensure the end result of our projects builds equitable wealth for our city and the communities we are serving.

What do you see as the major intersection between architecture and urban planning? What inspired your switch to urban planning primarily?

When I started my career, I was at a small architectural design firm in St. Louis, MO. St. Louis is a city that has seen the full rise and fall of urbanization and population decline. While at the firm, we did a lot of historical rehabilitation and housing work. Being there helped me to realize that I was interested not so much in what we were designing but in the systems in place that allowed all these neighborhoods to see this amount of disinvestment and extreme racial inequality that was present in St. Louis. I went back to planning school to understand these systems more and ended up getting really interested in real estate and economic development. One fun thing to note—I have a lot of Midwestern pride. While in planning school, I was one of the few people who refused to use New York City or Boston case studies—I always would investigate ones from the Midwest.

What do you see as an important policy step that needs to be taken that will make urban planning and design more equitable?

I think that the city needs to be better about equitably distributing resources (both physical as well as programmatic) across the five boroughs. When working in planning, you continually see neighborhoods that take the burden of housing growth and resiliency that should be better and more equitably distributed. We are still living in a deeply segregated and inequitable city. When thinking about the bigger conversations we’re having surrounding housing equality, the resources and benefits that come with having enough affordable mixed-income housing are essential for fair and equitable living.

What advice would you give to an urban planner whose project isn’t the most popular with the public?

I think the most important thing is trying to find some common ground with the public, even when facing extreme opposition. I have learned that there will always be very vocal opposition to any planning work you’re doing, but oftentimes, that is just a very vocal minority. When I worked on the Soho and Noho rezoning projects, we realized that we needed to have large town hall settings but also smaller conversations to meet the locals where they were at. There was also a lot of misinformation; once we could sit people down and discuss the impacts the project would have on their housing situation, we made more headway. Anyone living in unstable housing has fears around rezoning, but once you talk to them one on one, you can find common ground, and people were able to start seeing some of the benefits of the rezoning.

What has been your favorite odd job you’ve worked and why?

I have always worked in the service industry and really enjoyed my time there. But I did end up being DJ for a few weddings in grad school, and that was a really cool experience. Hit me up if you ever need some fabulous wedding playlists—tried and tested!

Tell me about a favorite hobby of yours and how you got into it.

When I was growing up, I played volleyball a lot. I recently got back into this hobby with the volleyball subculture at Domino Park. I started playing in Domino Park during 2020, and it was a fun way to enjoy the outdoors, get a great view of the city, and enjoy the nice weather while we have it.

Fast Facts:

Last TV show I binge-watched: Succession

Restaurant (delivery) I’d recommend to close friends: Xi’an Famous Foods

Book that changed me: Anything by Elena Ferrante

Best concert I’ve ever experienced: Beyonce

Movie I’d pay to see again and again: 10 Things I Hate About You

My Heroes are: A personal one is my sister—she is in med school right now and is an absolute rockstar. Another one is Anthony Bourdain—I was obsessed with him and how he used food to explore and understand different cultures.

A Coffee with Ali Sutherland-Brown, Principal

Ali with her daughter Thea

We grabbed coffee with Ali Sutherland-Brown to talk about cities, storytelling, and what it's like to be a working mother. We got some great book and movie recommendations too!

Ali is a Principal at Karp Strategies. As the first employee after Rebecca Karp founded the firm, Ali has been instrumental in helping build the company into what it is today. With over 13 years of industry experience, she previously worked at the NYC Department of City Planning and the Institute of Urban Design. She is a proud Coro Leadership New York graduate and holds degrees in Urban Planning and History/American Studies from MIT and Princeton, respectively. While trained as an urban planner, she is also an ardent advocate for creative and adaptive communication: “A good idea doesn’t mean very much if you can’t communicate it well.” She is also obsessed with behavioral economics and organizational psychology. Karp Strategies could not have grown to where it is today without Ali’s fierce commitment to the company and its people and passion for the work.

How do History and American Studies inform your practice of City Planning?

There’s always context and history you have to appreciate. American Studies is an interdisciplinary subject, and it totally changed my perspective on the different lenses through which you can think about and experience a place. You need to know its streets, its maps, its music, its novels, and its people—just to name a few elements of what ‘place’ really is. This idea is central to my work, and I use it to examine creative ways of understanding. Beyond that, part of the reason I love this field is that while I may be an expert in methodology, I am not an expert about every place we work in. Humility is critical, and my job is to understand the expertise that already exists in communities. You can find all of that if you take an interdisciplinary approach.

How has your experience living in different cities guided your understanding of urban planning?

I didn’t really know what urban planning was in undergrad—I just always knew that I loved cities and had a strong reaction to space. Living in different cities made me realize how much I’m affected by the built environment. For example, when I was an undergrad, I really thought I was going to be a TV writer and producer. But when I spent a summer interning in LA, I realized I just couldn’t live in such a car-centric place. Manhattan, Brooklyn, Cambridge, Chicago, DC, LA, and Ottawa—they are all so different but fundamentally led me to this career. I do this job because I want to positively affect how we experience cities and highlight how place and space affect our physical and mental health.

Why is the craft of writing and storytelling important to your work?

Everything is fundamentally about communication—every job comes down to your ability to communicate well with the people around you. This allows you to get what you need from your job, motivate other people to do their jobs, and be satisfied throughout it all. Ultimately, there is no shortcut to having an open line of communication or establishing empathy with someone—and this is the #1 thing I try to bring to my leadership at the firm and to clients. Just have the conversation. Prepare for it, especially if it’s a tough one. And see the situation from the other person’s perspective before you ever show up in the room. Written communication is also incredibly important because one of our primary jobs as urban planners is communicating the content we’ve created. We’re not doing our jobs effectively if we are not, for instance, writing as crisply and cleanly as we can. ‘Storytelling’ doesn’t have an implication of falsehood, to me—it’s all about getting your message across.

What has been your favorite highlight of working at Karp Strategies?

Growing the company! As someone with a degree in Urban Planning, I never thought that half my job would be helping to build a company from scratch. To the extent that people become urban planners because they’re excited to build something—a park, a facility, a district, a city—this company is what we’ve built. And by ‘we,’ I mean everyone who works—or has worked—here has contributed to its DNA. This has been one of the most unexpectedly rewarding experiences of my life. Making Karp Strategies the best company it can be is such an immense but rewarding challenge because if we can do that, then we can keep doing this great work.

Tell me a life-changing moment that helped shape who you are today.

Having my daughter—she’s two years old and is the best person I’ve ever met. Mostly, she makes my life much more complex, and also weirder and more wonderful than I thought possible (you can’t really anticipate the experience of dancing to Cookie Monster’s interpretation of a Swedish electropop beat until it happens to you). As this relates to work, historically in the US, there’s been a mistaken impression that working mothers are distracted and, therefore, less valuable as employees (I highly recommend Jessica Grose’s recent book on the subject). But working mothers are the most efficient and empathetic people you’ve ever met. Falling under the category of ‘cliche for a reason’: parenthood has changed my perspective on everything, including what work can and should be. And for what it’s worth, I’m immensely grateful to work somewhere that doesn’t just tolerate but celebrates my family and intense responsibilities at home.

Fast Facts:

Last TV show I binge-watched: Yellowjackets

Restaurant (delivery) I’d recommend to close friends: Mint Heights

Best concert I’ve ever experienced: Belle & Sebastian

A book that changed me: Anything by Lauren Groff and James Baldwin, Americanah (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), Priestdaddy (Patricia Lockwood), Slouching Towards Bethlehem (Joan Didion), Why We're Polarized (Ezra Klein), The Image of the City (Kevin Lynch)

A movie I’d pay to see again and again: Charade, Rear Window

My heroes are: Nora Ephron, Barack Obama, Kathryn Bigelow, Lorne Michaels, Jean Michel Basquiat, Daniel Kahneman, Holly Whyte