Columbia College Today

Rohit (Rit) Aggarwala ’93 was on campus on October 26 as a member of a panel of experts speaking on “Sustainability and Value Creation to the Community” at the Business School’s Social Enterprise Conference 2007.

PHOTO: DANIELLA ZALCMAN ’09

Rohit “Rit” Aggarwala ’93’s relationship with Columbia only began at the College. After completing his B.A. in history, he went on to earn an M.Phil. and Ph.D in history as well as an M.B.A. After earning his last degree in 2002, he has continued his affiliation with Columbia not only by serving on the CC Alumni Association Board of Directors, but also collaborating with faculty in his work.

That work is PlaNYC, Aggarwala’s ambitious undertaking as director of New York City’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability. The office works within the Office of Operations of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who appointed Aggarwala in June 2006 to head the new group.

PlaNYC is a vast project that encompasses initiatives for improving the city’s infrastructure and quality of life. The sweeping plan includes efforts focusing on five key areas of city environment: land, air, water, energy and transportation. The office, currently in the process of expanding from 10 employees to 20, aims to create a higher quality of life for future generations while contributing to a 30 percent reduction in global warming emissions.

“It’s an imperative for the city,” Aggarwala says of the focus on climate change. “Last September, the mayor appointed a sustainability advisory board, and in December he laid out goals. In his speech, he made a commitment that we would undertake outreach, including 11 town hall meetings across the boroughs. Alongside that, we were doing analysis and policy work.”

In addition to public meetings, Aggarwala has met with more than 100 grassroots organizations to gather feedback. He also has enlisted the expertise of specialists from Columbia.

“When I came on board, we knew that we needed the help of scientists and others who could guide us,” Aggarwala explains. He reached out to a number of Columbia faculty, including Director of the Earth Institute Jeffrey Sachs and Cynthia Rosenzweig, a senior research scientist at the Center for Climate Systems Research. “Even Ken Jackson ended up being in a video we made about infrastructure,” Aggarwala says.

Jackson, the Jacques Barzun Professor in History and the Social Sciences, has assisted Aggarwala before. He served as his undergraduate and graduate adviser, then as a member of his dissertation committee, and recalls Aggarwala as “well organized, thoughtful, perceptive and focused.”

Aggarwala has spent his whole life in New York, growing up in White Plains before attending the College. Though he intended to major in political science, he quickly adjusted his plans. “What I appreciated in the first history course I took, with Richard Bushman, was that history was much, much broader,” Aggarwala notes. “Looking at politics alone failed to look at the things that shape politics, such as religious shifts or cultural shifts.”

Along with coursework, Aggarwala broadened his knowledge of history and politics while serving as president of the College Democrats, as a member of the Student Government board at Earl Hall and as a reporter for Spectator.

His graduate work was influenced by Jackson, Bushman and Betsy Blackmar, who made up his dissertation committee. Aggarwala also is proud to have served on the student senate for four years and to have been one of two students representatives on the search committee that appointed President Lee C. Bollinger.

In an uncommon departure, Aggarwala took time off to pursue an M.B.A. between earning his master’s and Ph.D. “It is an unusual combination, but it ought to make more sense together if we thought about business and history more rationally than we do,” he says. “Business people would do well not to assume the current situation is always unique. From the business perspective, it makes sense to look at history, at the long term. From the historian’s perspective, I think they tend to dismiss how business decisions affect history and society.”

Aggarwala combined his interests working as a transportation consultant for McKinsey until he was tapped to work for the mayor’s office. Now he spends his days pushing forward PlaNYC one step at a time, trying to complete as much as possible in the roughly two years left in Bloomberg’s administration.

“In some cases, it is stuff the city has to execute,” Aggarwala says of implementing the plan’s elements. “In some cases it’s legislation, in some cases it’s plans to plan. We’re developing a green building bill, a transit plan and the congestion pricing initiative; we’re analyzing alternatives — ideas that the commission wants to consider — making sure things are moving, and ensuring quality.”

The position also has led him to give more talks than he ever imagined, including a number at Columbia. Speaking on campus is just one of Aggarwala’s ongoing connections to the University. He has been on the CCAA board since 2002 and is currently on its executive committee.

SIPA professor Ester Fuchs, a member of the mayor’s sustainability panel, credits Aggarwala’s “encyclopedic knowledge of environmental policy, his capacity to work harder than anyone else in the room, and his ability to listen to diverse opinions,” for his success. “Rit is always about finding the solution, never just articulating the problem, which made it extremely easy for me to work with him. Rit has been a gift from Columbia University to the City of New York.”

Laura Butchy ’04 Arts is a writer, dramaturg and theater educator in New York City. She is a regular contributor to CCT and American Theatre.

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Rohit Aggarwala ’93 Works To Implement PlaNYC