Lily Zaballos is a Brooklyn-based urban planner and interdisciplinary educator.
Lily brings 7+ years of experience engaging directly with New Yorkers of all ages through community education and engagement initiatives. She collaborates with stakeholders across urban communities to promote participatory planning and community development solutions, and work towards building equitable, resilient, and thriving cities.
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 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) where she supports community planning initiatives with elected officials and membership engagement with ANHD's member network of 80+ NYC community organizations.
