“Between having a Belgian mother and growing up on and around @usairforce bases all over Europe, I had a lot of exposure to slightly different ways of doing things. For one, I noticed many European cities are designed completely differently. Being built much earlier than American cities, their layouts reflect a much earlier paradigm of #urban planning. As I got older, I also noticed that welfare policies and the social safety net are much more generous in Western Europe. Majoring in urban studies at @stanford, I had this crystal-clear picture of different ways U.S. cities could look and how they could be built for more walkability and density, how they could have lively central squares, and preserve history in beautiful ways. Barcelona is working on 'super blocks' — containing everything residents need in a one- or two-square-mile radius. Paris is focused on making the city walkable, transit-friendly, and green. We should be pushing our own cities to work better for people, too. While these issues are very political, they’re usually not too abstract. Early in my career, while working in politics and communications for the public relations firm BerlinRosen and the think tank Employ America, I felt drawn to policy but didn’t have the quantitative background I needed, which led me to @PrincetonSPIA. I’m very motivated by anti-poverty, labor, and financial policy. I’d like to illuminate and improve the economic levers of power that touch all of our lives in ways most of us are unaware, such as Federal Reserve policies. The Fed has immense power to set economic conditions so that workers are doing well, receiving pay increases, experiencing more bargaining power, et cetera. To me, #politics and policymaking are for the people. My education at @Princeton is not to learn how to be part of a rule-making aristocracy.” – Joshua Seawell MPA ’22 (@seawxll).