This is part of a collection of reflection essays by graduating 2024 student leaders. View the rest here.
By Ceinna Little
In 2018, my grandmother’s house caught fire on the fifth anniversary of her death. The damage was so extensive that my mother and her siblings decided to sell the house for $250,000, hoping to repurchase the house once the damage was repaired. However, in 2020, after the repairs, the house was listed for $650,000—about 6.5 times more than what my grandmother paid in 1973. My grandmother raised four children as a single Black mother on a low salary, and the only asset she was able to leave behind was the house in Oakland, California—a once undesirable city because of its high crime rates and history of redlining. Yet as the neighborhood changed, my family had been priced out.
This experience made me realize that my true passion lay in affordable housing, community development, and preventing displacement. So I abandoned my plans to become a nonprofit administrator, and as soon as I finished my Bachelor’s in Business Administration I shifted gears and enrolled in the urban planning program at NYU Wagner.
My time at Wagner has allowed me to learn from, connect with, and grow amidst urban planning professionals. I am grateful for the professors and classmates who have helped guide me through the program. I’ve been able to see how connected the urban planning profession is in New York City and how varied the work can be. I’ve worked in housing policy research at the NYU Furman Center, land use planning at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, and community development at St. Nicks Alliance. Each experience was unique and allowed me to contribute to work that ultimately had the same goal: making the built environment work for New Yorkers.
This work experience, coupled with my experience inside the classroom, has given me a new perspective on how I—or anyone—can best enact change. There is no single answer. Whether you do advocacy, research, or development work, what matters is the connections you make, the people you touch, and the vision that guides you. Wagner has allowed me to start the process of making change and guided me on how to continue that change in the future.
Wagner has been a resource. I have been able to develop new skills in the classroom and I will now go out into the world feeling emboldened to use those skills in my work. I will leave Wagner without any doubts or unfulfilled desires about my time here, only excitement for the positive changes I know my peers and I will make.
Ceinna Little is graduating with a Master’s in Urban Planning with a concentration in City and Community Planning. Ceinna was the Chair of the Black Student Association for the 2023-24 school year.
