Joshua DeFlorio, MIT, Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Transportation, housing, and development

For the first six weeks of my internship at Massport, my main focus was on building skills and acquiring the knowledge necessary in order to complete the task at hand—the disposition of a parcel on the South Boston waterfront. This included:

• A crash primer in real estate disposition and development,

• an overview of the South Boston development context,

• wading through numerous regulatory and permitting agreements, and

• an accounting of the parties invested in the future of the area (port interests, advocacy groups, other agencies, South Boston politicians, the Boston-area development community, etc.). 

Some time after the sixth week, this rapid accumulation of more technical/factual savoir-faire was gradually overshadowed by a growing sense of the role the Economic Planning and Development Department holds in the overall operations of Massport, which meant trying to cultivate an understanding of Massport’s overall interests and its priorities for the particular parcel to which I was assigned.  While originally, in an attempt to master my particular task, I viewed EP&D very narrowly—almost as a planning entity separate from Massport—I gradually began to realize how entirely subservient the department is to the core missions of the Authority.  This trap, I think, is a common one for planners—operating in a vacuum, functioning within the confines of a construct, without anything more than a vague sense of the broader implications.

This internship was crucial in further whetting my interest in the public and private aspects of urban development.  My courses this year are focused on providing an overlapping, micro-to-macro view of the development of cities:  real estate development, land use and community planning, urban politics, and real estate economics.  While I have yet to decide on a definitive career path, my desire to work in the general arena of land use and urban development (with a strong interest in integrating transportation planning) was reinforced.  I could envision working in either the public or private sectors if the job served the right interests, brought me together with interesting people, focused on dynamic (or distressed) places, and were comprised of significant, thought-provoking tasks.