Mara Wiltshire

I'm the Urban Planning Coordinator for the Everett Station District Alliance which is a non-profit group of business and property owners in a light industrial neighborhood just east of the business district in the city of Everett, WA. The neighborhood will undergo a massive land-use change over the next 20 years with the expansion of a light rail transit system to the neighborhood and regional goals to provide high-density residential and employment capacity here.

I started out as a small business owner located in the business district in my city. As the owner of a busy restaurant downtown, I could see the development around me and how it affected my business and the flow of commerce and residents. Five years ago, I decided to get directly involved in the conversation on how to shape the future of my city. I went back to school and earned a BS in urban planning and started working on planning for future growth in my city. A strong sense of community drives what I do, where I've been, and where I want to go.

I'm currently working on planning through the AmeriCorps VISTA program whose goal is to end the cycle of poverty.

In a for-profit development world, it's not possible to mandate equitable development onto the free market. But a city can craft its infrastructure in a way that constrains growth so that it naturally forces some amount of equity. My planning efforts work toward that goal.

"At the core of my planning work is ensuring that equity in housing and equitable access to employment, services, and amenities are built into the infrastructure of our community."