Jens Aerts

Jens Aerts is a senior urban planner with 20 years of experience, working with international development agencies, city governments, developers and non-for-profit organizations on the intersection of urban practice, policy and research. Most recently he has been working for UN-Habitat, UNICEF and the World Bank. He authored UNICEF’s recent publication ‘Shaping urbanization for children’ and supported the agency in program implementation of its Global Urban Strategy, including training and technical assistance on child rights and urban planning in regional and country offices (Dominican Republic, LACRO, Paraguay, Philippines, South-Africa, UAE). He has contributed to various technical reports, guides and popular articles linking urban health, road safety, child rights and sustainable urban development. Recently he has been active as member of the Advisory Board for the upcoming Street for Kids program in the Global Designing Cities Initiative. Jens is an associate partner at BUUR - Bureau for Urbanism, specialized on sustainable urban development programs and policies, such as neighborhood upgrading, green mobility planning, healthy environments, circular economy and place-making. Before that he assisted both Governments of the Flemish and the Brussels Region to build urban planning capacity in public agencies and to direct community led planning processes and key public space interventions. Jens has been teaching at the Cosmopolis Centre for Urban Research of the University of Brussels (VUB) from 2011 until 2016 and is currently affiliated with the Urban Community and Health Equity Lab at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP). He holds a MSc in Civil Engineering and Architecture from the University of Leuven (Belgium) and obtained his MA Urban Planning at Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya in Barcelona (Spain). He is member of the Board of the Flemish Spatial Planning Organisation (VRP) and the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP).