Architect and planner Vishaan Chakrabarti, FAIA, is principal of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism | PAU, a firm he founded in 2015 dedicated to the advancement of sustainable cities. PAU’s projects include designs for comprehensive new communities in East New York, Philadelphia, the Domino Sugar Refinery, Newark, Detroit, and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, as well as a master plan vision for Sunnyside Yards in Queens. PAU’s Penn Palimpsest project imagines creating a light-filled public commons by recycling the foundations and superstructure of Madison Square Garden to renew Penn Station and its surrounds. Chakrabarti teaches design and urban theory at Columbia University, and is the author of A Country of Cities, a forceful polemic arguing for the critical importance of cities, public transportation, parks, affordable density, and the public investment to make “an infrastructure of opportunity” possible. Earlier in his career he was the director of the Manhattan office of the New York City Department of City Planning, where he played a major role in the post-9/11 planning of lower Manhattan and other projects essential to New York’s future. He was a founding member of the board of directors of Friends of the High Line and currently serves on the boards of the Regional Plan Association, the Citizens Budget Commission, and The Architectural League of New York.