Calendar of Events

New Student Orientation 2014Discovering Historic Los AngelesKeynote Speaker: Ken BernsteinOpen to incoming first year students   How does an urban planner help to build a modern-day city while preserving its rich history and culture?  Ken Bernstein, Principal City Planner for the Policy Planning and Historic Resources Division of the Los Angeles Department of City Planning, will share reflections on Los Angeles as a laboratory for urban policy and will discuss his work identifying and protecting our city’s unique historic places.  He will share images drawn from some of the “interesting finds” captured in the first-ever citywide survey of Los Angeles’ historic resources.    As principal city planner, Ken serves as lead staff member for the City’s Cultural Heritage Commission, oversees SurveyLA, a multi-year citywide survey of historic resources with significant support from the J. Paul Getty Trust, and is working to create a comprehensive historic preservation program for Los Angeles.  He also oversees the department’s long-range policy planning initiatives, including: citywide planning, including the Department’s work on its General Plan Elements, housing and transportation planning, updates of the City’s Community Plans, transit-oriented district planning, and neighborhood planning initiatives.   Ken previously served for eight years as Director of Preservation Issues for the Los Angeles Conservancy, the largest local non-profit historic preservation organization in the country, where he directed the Conservancy’s public policy and advocacy activities.  He served as Planning and Transportation Deputy to Los Angeles City Councilmember Laura Chick from 1993 to 1998 and worked for three years as Editor of The Planning Report, a monthly publication on urban planning, housing, and transportation issues in Southern California.    He is a Board Member of the Valley Economic Alliance, for which he has chaired a coordinating council of San Fernando Valley Business Improvement Districts.  He has also been an appointee to numerous boards and commissions, including the City of Los Angeles’ Public Participation Task Force on Economic Development and Housing Trust Fund Advisory Committee.  He has been an adjunct professor in the Urban Studies and Planning Department of California State University, Northridge (CSUN), teaching a course on urban planning, redevelopment and economic development for the public sector.    Ken holds a master’s degree in Public Affairs and Urban and Regional Planning from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and received his B.A. in Political Science from Yale University.