Lily Song

Lily Song is an Assistant Professor of Race and Social Justice in the Built Environment at Northeastern University. She holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of California — Los Angeles, and BA in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley.

Song’s research interests lie at the nexus of race, class, and gender politics of space; infrastructure-based mobilizations and experiments; and reparative planning and design in American cities and other decolonizing contexts.

Prior to coming to Northeastern, Song was a Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she was Founding Coordinator of Harvard CoDesign.

From 2013-2015, Song was a Provost Fellow at University College London, where her postdoc research informed urban infrastructure planning and governance with “informality” in the decolonizing, multiethnic, climate vulnerable Indonesian context.

Education

• Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2007 — 2012)
• Master's degree University of California, Los Angeles (2005 — 2007)
• Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) University of California, Berkeley (1998 — 2002)

Awards & Honors

• Two-time winner of Urban Planning & Design Faculty Award, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Student Forum, 2017-2018 & 2018-2019
• Nomination for AESOP Best Published Paper Prize (2017), Planning Theory and Practice
• University College London Provost Fellow, 2013-2015
• Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations Beyster Graduate Fellow, 2011-2012
• MIT Martin Family Society Fellow for Urban Sustainability, 2010-2011

Selected Publications

• Lily Song. 2015. “Race, transformative planning, and the just city.” Planning Theory, 14(2), 152-173.
• Lily Song. 2016. “Enabling transformative agency: community-based green economic and workforce development in LA and Cleveland.” Planning Theory & Practice, 17(2), 227-243.
• Lily Song. 2016. “Planning with urban informality: A case for inclusion, co-production, and re-iteration.” International Development Planning Review, 38(4), 359-381.
• John Taylor & Lily Song. 2016. “Return to the Streets.” Cityscape, 18(1), 71-88.
• Lily Song, Mariel Kirschen, and John Taylor. “Women on wheels: Gender and cycling in Solo, Indonesia,” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography.
• “Race and Place.” Future of the American City Podcast, June 13, 2019.
• “Keeping On: Planner Lily Song on continuing the push for anti-racist design,” The Architect’s Newspaper, 2 August 2021.