PLUS Research Fellows

When civic and educational leaders work together to put children and youth at the heart of urban planning, great things happen – ranging from expanding access to school playgrounds in areas without parks to building affordable housing near good schools. Too often, however, this collaboration does not happen. City and school decision-makers operate in silos, without systems or a common language to bring them together.

To bridge this divide, CC+S launched the PLUS (Planning & Learning United for Systems-Change) Leadership Initiative to work directly with cities and school districts to nurture collaboration and identify innovative, win-win solutions.  Since 2006, PLUS has partnered with dozens of cities and school districts in the Bay Area and Sacramento to realize a new model for collaborative policymaking. It has cultivated a community of practice in which professionals connect with and learn from their counterparts in other cities and districts. Over fifty UC Berkeley Graduate Research Fellows have contributed to the initiative and are spreading this collaborative approach across the country.