Christine Saum

Full time 2007-2008

Photo by Doug Cogger

Christine Saum is a licensed architect and works for the National Capital Planning Commission -- the public agency that conducts planning for all federal facilities in the Washington, D.C. region. She is Director of the Urban Design and Plan Review Division, attempting to bring a high level of design excellence to the federal presence in Washington. Prior to her work at NCPC, she served for ten years as the Director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, a project of the National Endowment of the Arts. In all of this work, Christine has focused on creating vibrant downtowns and on helping lay people understand issues of urban design and how they can work for better built environments in their own communities.  Most recently, she has been distressed by the sprawl of the federal government outward from Washington and the harm that is doing to the beautiful landscapes of Northern Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley and the Maryland countryside.  As a fellow, Christine will study urban and regional planning as well as sustainable development, focusing particularly on ways of sustaining business and agriculture in smaller communities so they can resist the powerful market forces of ever-expanding residential development.