Introducing Knowledge. Place. Power.

A unique learning experience that equips residents to engage meaningfully in local planning—created for practitioners committed to building informed, empowered communities.

Built for People Who Want to Understand—and Change—the Places They Live.

Backed by Practitioners Who Believe in Their Power.

Knowledge. Place. Power. is a resident-centered learning experience designed for community members who want to better understand how planning, policy, and geography shape their everyday lives — and how to use that knowledge to create change.

Whether you're a nonprofit leader, planner, educator, or service provider, you know that empowered residents are the backbone of lasting impact. Knowledge. Place. Power. equips your community with the tools to make sense of how land use, housing, transportation, and infrastructure decisions affect them — and how they can advocate for more just, equitable outcomes.

This is more than civic education. It's place-based, justice-grounded, and designed to meet people where they are — using real-life examples, hands-on activities, and engaging language that demystifies urban planning and centers lived experience.

Through this program, your residents will:

  • Build confidence to participate in local decision-making

  • Understand how planning and policy shape their neighborhoods

  • Connect personal experience to systems change

  • Grow as leaders, advocates, and storytellers

Bring Knowledge. Place. Power. to your community — and invest in education that fuels collective action.

Why Bring Spatial Thinking to Your Community?

Because understanding how geography, systems, and power intersect helps residents move from frustration to action. Spatial thinking gives people the tools to see patterns, ask better questions, and advocate for solutions rooted in lived experience

 

What Your Residents Will Gain:

✔ A grounded understanding of how place-based inequities impact health, education, housing, and everyday life
✔ Practical tools to recognize and respond to spatial injustice in their own communities
✔ Strategies to engage in planning and decision-making, not just be affected by it
✔ Confidence to turn lived experience into leadership, insight into action, and concern into collective power

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What you’ll gain

✔ A powerful framework to deepen community trust and participation
✔ Tools to support resident learning around planning, policy, and place-based inequity
✔ Stronger partnerships rooted in shared knowledge and mutual respect
✔ A more equitable, informed foundation for co-creating programs, policies, and solutions
✔ Clear pathways to move from service delivery to community capacity-building

Our services

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    Our Flagship Education Program

    A 12-week hybrid learning experience (online + optional in-person sessions) designed for residents and planners who want to equip communities with the tools to understand and transform their environments.

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    Place-Based Learning for Your Stakeholders

    We bring Knowledge. Place. Power. to your networks through custom workshops, intensives, or cohort experiences, helping stakeholders build a shared understanding of how planning, policy, and geography shape outcomes and how they can take informed, collective action.

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    Bring Spatial Thinking to Your Organizational Goal

    For institutions ready to center place and power in their work, we offer customized strategy support to help non-planning staff understand the planning process and confidently engage in shaping more equitable outcomes.

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    Inspiration Rooted in Geography and Justice

    Our founder and faculty are available for keynotes, panels, and guest lectures that explore how place, power, and planning shape our lives—and how residents, practitioners, and institutions can work together to create more just and equitable communities.

Learn More

Who we work with

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    Residents & Community Leaders

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    Practitioners & Frontline Staff

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    Organizational Leaders & Institutions

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    Coalitions & Cross-Sector Partners

Schedule a Conversation

“Everything has to do with geography.”

— Judy Martz

Further your community’s planning education with Knowledge. Place. Power. today.