The following short video of Sue Schwartz, American Planning Association President and Planning Director for Greensboro, North Carolina was one of seven we filmed at the National Academy of Public Administration’s annual conference in Washington D.C. between November 2 and November 4. This year, Schwartz was among a select group of individuals who were elected to be NAPA fellows.

In this video, Schwartz talks about the importance of planning as a key to a successfully functioning government. “Planning and planners. . . play a very important (role) in our country,” she says. “We have those tough conversations, we do the analysis, we bring the issues forward, we seek out alternatives . . .”

One issue that Schwartz focuses on is the housing crisis, pointing out that across the country, we are short by four million units. “In some cases, it’s an issue of labor,” she says. “In some cases, it’s an issue of supplies . . .In some cases, it’s trying to recover from natural disasters. . . “

This is the second of seven videos in this series. The first was with Robert Shea, CEO of GovNavigators and former associate director at the US Office of Management and Budget, which can be found at the bottom of this page. 

[Note: To see the guest column that Sue Schwartz recently wrote for Greenebarrett.com, click here.]