Student Profiles

Biography:
Desiree “Dee” Powell is an Arlington, Texas native where she graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington with her Bachelors in Interdisciplinary Studies and Masters in City & Regional Planning. She is an unconventional urban planner and a self-identified “place curator”. She embodies that name within the firm she founded and leads, DRBTS (Do Right By The Streets), which focuses on place keeping as a tool to implement temporary-to-permanent space activation projects in communities of color driven towards economic mobility and community sustainability. Within her firm, she also specializes in educating and introducing the complexities of urban planning elements (land use, zoning, etc.) and its impact on communities of color. Her research topics include: black towns, zoning and land use regulatory frameworks, placemaking/creative placemaking, third places, place keeping, black geographies, economic mobility, food systems planning, resilient black communities, and hip hop as a tool for teaching and empowering urban planning.