Addressing Urban Challenges from a Regional Planning Agency Perspective - A Fireside Chat with DVRPC's New-ish Executive Director, Ariella Maron

Ariella Maron is the Executive Director of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization for the bi-state, nine-county Greater Philadelphia region. Ms. Maron joined DVRPC in 2023 after two decades in the private and public sectors, where she led the development and implementation of far-reaching solutions to a broad set of urban challenges across the disciplines of urban planning, local government policy, infrastructure, climate action, economic development, and environmental justice. 

Patty Elkis has over 35 years of planning experience and spent the bulk of her career at the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), before retiring in July 2024.  Serving as Deputy Executive Director, Patty helped run the organization, overseeing the agency's work in transportation, capital programming and project implementation, smart growth, housing, economic development, demographic analyses, environmental, climate and energy, and healthy communities planning. Her work centered on promoting equity, partnerships, and implementation, with recent focus on leveraging opportunities in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) for our region.