Thomas K. Wright

Thomas Wright Thomas Wright is the executive director of the Regional Plan Association –  the grandfather (founded in 1929) of regional planning organizations across the United States and a leading voice, both regionally and nationally, for sustainable citistate-wide planning, community design, infrastructure planning and capital finance.

On the administrative side, Wright overseas management and policy functions of a $5 million organization, including budgeting, fund-raising and cultivating a 65-member board of directors.  But his heart is clearly on the policy side.  He lectures widely on growth management and regional planning, not only in the U.S. but internationally (including appearances in countries ranging from China to Croatia, Spain to Vietnam).

Among Wright’s top activities of recent years: helping organize “Listening to the City” in the summer of 2002, a 4,500-person forum on rebuilding Lower Manhattan after 9/11; coordinating public opposition to construction of a football stadium on the Far West Side of Manhattan; and directing a three-day charrette that established planning priorities for the administration of Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

Wright has been a visiting lecturer at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs since 2007.  From 1998 to 2001 he served as deputy executive director of New Jersey’s Office of State Planning, where he oversaw adoption of the 2001 State Development and Redevelopment Plan.  He also edited and managed production of A Region at Risk, RPA’s Third Regional Plan, published by Island Press in 1996.

Last updated February 21, 2010