Lily Zaballos is a Brooklyn-based urban planner and interdisciplinary educator. 

Lily begin her career as an educator, working in various capacities for educational nonprofits across NYC, including 826NYC, City Parks Foundation, and Spoons Across America. In these roles, she worked with youth and their families, teaching a wide variety of academic and creative subjects and facilitating community workshops and events.

Interested in diving deeper into urban systems, Lily pursued a graduate degree in urban policy at Hunter College. While at Hunter, she found her niche in urban planning, food policy, and community development, writing for the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center and serving as a 2021-2022 Morgan Stanley/ANHD Community Development Fellow.

In 2022, Lily joined the team at Karp Strategies, coordinating urban planning projects for cross-sector clients in NYC and beyond, with a focus on stakeholder engagement strategy for the community development, resilience and renewables, and transportation sectors. In 2024, driven by her commitment to centering community-based planning, Lily joined the Association of Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD) as their Community Planning Coordinator. In this role, she supports ANHD’s land use justice technical assistance work with elected officials, community organizations, and the public.

 
 
 



Lily holds a B.A. from the NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study and a M.S. in Urban Policy and Leadership from Hunter College’s Department of Urban Policy and Planning.

Lily lives and works in NYC, she is available for consulting, teaching, and writing opportunities.
Full CV available upon request.

Contact Lily