Jonathan Pacheco Bell, MAUP, MLIS @c1typlann3r
A change agent working across disciplinary boundaries, I’ve worked for over 20 years in the fields of urban planning, architecture, libraries, community and labor organizing, and nonprofit leadership.
I’m a practicing city planner with experience in the public, private, nonprofit, and allied sectors. My work is done on the ground.
While operating as a street-level planner in South Central LA’s Florence-Firestone community, I created Embedded Planning. The praxis situates the planner’s work on the streets — not in an office — to increase equity and participation for historically marginalized communities harmed by inequitable planning. Embedded Planning has grown into an international, decentralized, horizontal movement embraced by emerging planners. Our maxim is: “We Cannot Plan From Our Desks.”
Through my two decades-long career, I’ve developed expertise in community engagement, participatory planning and design, inclusive public space, General, Specific, Community and Vision Plans, code compliance, zoning ordinances, land use, planning studies, policy writing, and project management.
Through my movement-based work, I found my way to nonprofit leadership. During my first stint in public sector planning, I was an elected Board Member in the California Association of Professional Employees (CAPE Union, AFL-CIO). I served as an inaugural Board Director for Words Uncaged, a narrative therapy organization for incarcerated Californians. For more than a decade, I’ve been a leader in the American Planning Association, with memberships in the Latinos and Planning Division, APA Los Angeles section, and APA Inland Empire section. I served as Social Media Director for APA Los Angeles and was the sole Southern California representative on the APA National Social Equity Task Force. I’m currently serving as Co-President and Public Information Officer of the Florence-Firestone Community Organization (501c3), a community planning and advocacy nonprofit in the neighborhood where Embedded Planning was born.
I’m a published author with pieces in popular media, peer-reviewed journals, and books. You can find my writing in Planning Magazine, Cultural Daily, Public Libraries Quarterly, and Focus: The Journal of Planning Practice & Education, to name a few publications. I’m a regular contributor on Medium and a past correspondent for UrbDeZine Los Angeles. You can read my chapter on community library history in the book, A Paseo Through Time in Florence-Firestone.
I’ve guest-lectured nationally on planning praxis. My speaking engagements include Duke University, Columbia GSAPP, University of Utah, UCLA Luskin, Pratt Institute, Stanford Engineering, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, UC Irvine, Woodbury University, Cal Poly Pomona, CSUN, East LA College Architecture, and Pasadena City College Architecture; state and national APA Conferences in California, Louisiana, Iowa, and Indiana; and public forums such as MOCA Los Angeles, City Parks Alliance, and the SF Urban Film Fest.
From 2021 to 2025, I served as a lecturer at Cal Poly Pomona College of Environmental Design teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. I also developed and taught a new course on community-based planning for Pitzer College.
In 2024, I proudly received the Planning Advocate Award of Excellence from APA Los Angeles and the Planning Pioneer Award of Excellence from APA Inland Empire. In truth, Embedded Planning won.
I’m a First Generation scholar-practitioner born in Boyle Heights and raised in East LA/Montebello. This experience motivated me to become a mentor to emerging planners. My mentees include high school, community college, undergrad, and graduate students from around the world.
A product of the California public school system from kindergarten to graduate school, I hold an M.A. in Urban Planning from UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, an Master of Library and Information Science from San Jose State University iSchool, a B.A. in Political Science from Cal State LA, and an A.A. in Architecture/Liberal Arts from East Los Angeles College.
Connect with me at: @c1typlann3r.
Memberships
– American Planning Association, California Chapter
– APA Los Angeles Section
– APA Inland Empire Section
– APA Latinos and Planning Division
– Planners Network
– Society for American City and Regional Planning History
– Urban History Association
– Caribbean Philosophical Association
– UCLA Latino Alumni Association
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