Vanessa L. Deane
Assistant Clinical Professor of Urban Planning and Public Service; Director of Urban Planning Program
Dr. Vanessa L. Deane is Assistant Clinical Professor of Urban Planning and Public Service and Director of the Urban Planning program at NYU Wagner. Dr. Deane's research and practice centers on the political economy of disasters, primarily in small island developing states. For about a decade, she undertook an in-depth analysis of Haiti's institutional development over the past 30 years in order to evaluate the country's post-2010 earthquake capacity for improved local governance and public service delivery.
In light of a changing climate and rising instances of natural hazards, her work also explores the adaptive capacity of Caribbean nations in maintaining the wellbeing of their citizens, physical landscapes, and economies given current and imminent disaster threats. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, she received a Quick Response Grant from the Natural Hazards Center, with the support of the National Science Foundation, to evaluate the role of crisis leadership on pandemic outcomes in Barbados.
Dr. Deane was recognized as the "Professor of the Year" by the 2020 graduating class. Other accolades include the 2018 “Impact Award – Young Women Rising” by the American Women for International Understanding as well as being inducted into the Haitian Roundtable’s 1804 List as one of the “Top 5 to Watch” among Haitian-Americans in 2015. Dr. Deane was also named one of “40 Urban Leaders Under 40” by Next City in 2014.
She obtained her Ph.D. in Public and Urban Policy from The New School and her Master of Urban Planning from New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. She graduated magna cum laude from Brandeis University with her Bachelor of Arts in African and African American Studies and in American Studies, along with double minors in Education Studies and in Social Justice and Social Policy.
This course introduces students to the discipline of emergency management to better understand the urban planning and public service approaches necessary to prepare for, respond to, recover from and mitigate future emergency and disaster impacts. Focusing primarily on natural disasters, the course uses case study examples and recent events to expound upon the historical and conceptual frameworks that have and continue to shape this field. The course also includes assessments of social and individual behaviors that serve as a foundation for understanding how people act in disasters and how behavioral changes may save lives and property.
The consequences of disastrous events are escalating across the world, for example, in terms of lives lost, injuries, adverse social conditions, economic costs and environmental destruction. Furthermore, the rapidity of action required when an emergency arises poses unique challenges to traditional planning and the provision of public services. This course introduces students to the discipline of disaster risk management, particularly regarding natural disasters, in order to better understand planning and public service approaches necessary to prepare for, respond to, recover from and mitigate future disaster impacts. The course also includes assessments of social and individual behaviors that serve as a foundation for understanding how people act in disasters, how behavioral changes may save lives and property, and how risks are or should be communicated at every stage.
The consequences of disastrous events are escalating across the world, for example, in terms of lives lost, injuries, adverse social conditions, economic costs and environmental destruction. Furthermore, the rapidity of action required when an emergency arises poses unique challenges to traditional planning and the provision of public services. This course introduces students to the discipline of disaster risk management, particularly regarding natural disasters, in order to better understand planning and public service approaches necessary to prepare for, respond to, recover from and mitigate future disaster impacts. The course also includes assessments of social and individual behaviors that serve as a foundation for understanding how people act in disasters, how behavioral changes may save lives and property, and how risks are or should be communicated at every stage.
Couples with CAP-GP.3227.
As part of the core curriculum of the NYU Wagner Masters program, Capstone teams spend an academic year addressing challenges and identifying opportunities for a client organization or conducting research on a pressing social question. Wagner's Capstone program provides students with a centerpiece of their graduate experience whereby they are able to experience first-hand turning the theory of their studies into practice under the guidance of an experienced faculty member. Projects require students to get up-to-speed quickly on a specific content or issue area; enhance key process skills including project management and teamwork; and develop competency in gathering, analyzing, and reporting out on data. Capstone requires students to interweave their learning in all these areas, and to do so in real time, in an unpredictable, complex, real-world environment.
The consequences of disastrous events are escalating across the world, for example, in terms of lives lost, injuries, adverse social conditions, economic costs and environmental destruction. Furthermore, the rapidity of action required when an emergency arises poses unique challenges to traditional planning and the provision of public services. This course introduces students to the discipline of disaster risk management, particularly regarding natural disasters, in order to better understand planning and public service approaches necessary to prepare for, respond to, recover from and mitigate future disaster impacts. The course also includes assessments of social and individual behaviors that serve as a foundation for understanding how people act in disasters, how behavioral changes may save lives and property, and how risks are or should be communicated at every stage.
Couples with CAP-GP.3227.
As part of the core curriculum of the NYU Wagner Masters program, Capstone teams spend an academic year addressing challenges and identifying opportunities for a client organization or conducting research on a pressing social question. Wagner's Capstone program provides students with a centerpiece of their graduate experience whereby they are able to experience first-hand turning the theory of their studies into practice under the guidance of an experienced faculty member. Projects require students to get up-to-speed quickly on a specific content or issue area; enhance key process skills including project management and teamwork; and develop competency in gathering, analyzing, and reporting out on data. Capstone requires students to interweave their learning in all these areas, and to do so in real time, in an unpredictable, complex, real-world environment.
Management and Leadership is designed to empower you with the skills you will need to make meaningful change in the world—whether you care about bike lanes, criminal justice, prenatal care, community development, urban planning, social investment, or something else. Whatever your passion, you can have an impact by leading and managing. In this course, you will enhance the technical, interpersonal, conceptual, and political skills needed to run effective and efficient organizations embedded in diverse communities, policy arenas, sectors, and industries. In class, we will engage in a collective analysis of specific problems that leaders and managers face—first, diagnosing them and then, identifying solutions—to explore how organizations can meet and exceed their performance objectives. As part of that process, you will encounter a variety of practical and essential topics and tools, including mission, strategy, goals, structure, teams, diversity and inclusion, motivation, and negotiation.
This course examines historic and contemporary patterns of racial and ethnic stratification often found at the center of disputes concerning urban development, the allocation of city resources and unequal distributions of power. Also embedded throughout the course are ongoing analyses of the ways in which structural inequalities often function in class and gender-specific ways. Using New York City as a laboratory, an interdisciplinary approach is implored - within and outside of the classroom - to make explicit the impacts of this complex legacy of racial formation on planning processes, decisions and outcomes for historically disenfranchised people and communities. The racialized experiences of select immigrant populations, which includes patterns of incorporation into American society as well as enduring transnational links to countries of origin, are also explored within this context.
The consequences of disastrous events are escalating across the world, for example, in terms of lives lost, injuries, adverse social conditions, economic costs and environmental destruction. Furthermore, the rapidity of action required when an emergency arises poses unique challenges to traditional planning and the provision of public services. This course introduces students to the discipline of disaster risk management, particularly regarding natural disasters, in order to better understand planning and public service approaches necessary to prepare for, respond to, recover from and mitigate future disaster impacts. The course also includes assessments of social and individual behaviors that serve as a foundation for understanding how people act in disasters, how behavioral changes may save lives and property, and how risks are or should be communicated at every stage.
The last three decades have witnessed a global proliferation of public sector restructuring, decentralization, and democratization in developing countries. Traditional development planning has adapted (unevenly) to these trends as they have unfolded. This course presents an overview of the evolution of the theory and practice of planning in developing countries with a particular focus on subnational governments. A central theme is that there are certain universal norms and processes in development planning, but the structure and performance of a planning system depend heavily on the economic, political, institutional and cultural context of a particular country. The course outlines and assesses planning models and systems, reviews approaches used by developing countries and international development agencies to support decentralization and local planning, and introduces a range of practices and tools used by local planners in developing countries. The overall focus is on how local planning systems, techniques and processes can be strategically designed and implemented to work effectively in different contexts. Detailed case studies and exercises based on them are an integral part of the course.
Management and Leadership is designed to empower you with the skills you will need to make meaningful change in the world—whether you care about bike lanes, criminal justice, prenatal care, community development, urban planning, social investment, or something else. Whatever your passion, you can have an impact by leading and managing. In this course, you will enhance the technical, interpersonal, conceptual, and political skills needed to run effective and efficient organizations embedded in diverse communities, policy arenas, sectors, and industries. In class, we will engage in a collective analysis of specific problems that leaders and managers face—first, diagnosing them and then, identifying solutions—to explore how organizations can meet and exceed their performance objectives. As part of that process, you will encounter a variety of practical and essential topics and tools, including mission, strategy, goals, structure, teams, diversity and inclusion, motivation, and negotiation.
2021
The post-Duvalier Haitian Constitution of 1987 was an appeal for decentralization to reorganize the Haitian state after the fall of the twenty-nine-year Duvalier dictatorship in 1986. However, Haiti today is no closer to realizing this objective than it was then. The partial implementation of the Constitution’s decentralizing framework has created a political quagmire of critical administrative gaps that continue to stifle Haiti’s progress. Rather than moving toward intergovernmental power-sharing and greater inclusivity, as the document intended, these apertures have instead reinforced an autocratic governance system despite Jean-Claude Duvalier’s departure. This paper is the first to conduct a comprehensive analysis of post-Duvalier efforts to decentralize Haiti. Using indepth semistructured expert interviews and content analysis, the paper presents several institutional impediments that curtail Haiti’s advancement in terms of improved public service delivery and unadulterated citizen engagement. The paper also unveils how and why key central government actors consistently impede the extent to which decentralization could facilitate widespread improvements in local development and subnational governance throughout Haiti.