March 19-27, 2016

Spring in Japan is a dream. Cherry blossoms bloom and everything is suddenly pink and cherry flavored. I was lucky enough to be chosen to be part of a select group of student to visit Japan thanks to a generous donation from the Terasaki Foundation. Our industrious Japanese international students organized a comprehensive list of visits to organizations such as JR West and JR East, Tokyo Metro and the Ministry of Transport, to name a few. The experience illuminated the intimate relationship that transportation planning has with urban design, and exposed the striking differences that Los Angeles and Tokyo takes in their approach to government structure and planning principles.

The Global Public Affairs group at UCLA was kind enough to post my retrospective upon return from the trip, which you can on the GPA Blog.