Diego Lomelli

This spring, I worked as a part-time intern for the International and Institute-wide Initiatives (i3) Department at Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. The institution is a nonprofit whose research centers on the effective use, taxation, and stewardship of the land. Because of its longstanding academic history (its origins date to 1946), the organization has become a world reference regarding land use policies.

Recently, the institution launched a global campaign to promote the implementation of Land Value Capture (LVC). LVC refers to a set of policies by which communities can recapture the increase in land values resulting from public investments and government actions. These funds can be reinvested in the public sector in forms of, for example, affordable housing or infrastructure improvements. In other words, LVC claims that public action should generate public benefit.

As a part of this global campaign, the Institute is planning on producing a series of explanatory videos analyzing different aspects of LVC, for instance, what LVC is and how it works; how LVC can help cities to overcome the most vexing challenges they are currently facing; and how LVC is applied in different contexts around the globe, just to name a few. One of the projects I was involved in, was to generate different visual narrative concepts for the first (introductory) video of the series so we could compile and organize all the required content to produce the audiovisual.

We developed two main formats, (1) Explanatory and (2) Pitch, in which different strategies were applied to explain some of the previously mentioned aspects of LVC. For the time of this writing, the head of the department is still deliberating which format adapts better to the intended purpose to then advance to the production stage.

Additionally, Lincoln Institute recognizes the importance of expanding the reach and impact of their work. Therefore, the institution offers online learning opportunities (many at no cost) through their website. Currently, the instructional design team is performing some improvements and redeveloping some of these materials to make them more appealing and easy to understand. A significant portion of my work concentrated on redeveloping and reproducing content for one of these courses. The modules include videos, interactive exercises, and self-evaluations to introduce notions on relevant themes such as Climate Change adaptation planning, risks assessment, collaborative decision-making, and scenario planning.

Finally, another project in which I participated was a collaborative effort between our department and the Tax unit of the institute. The Tax Department recently released a new visualization tool called State-by-State Property Tax at a Glance that allows users to compare information side by side on property tax systems in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. With the intention of reaching non-English speaker audiences, I was asked to translate the content and later record the audio piece for the Spanish version of the tutorial video. This video is already available on the Institute’s YouTube channel.

I am thankful to the organization, especially to all i3 team members for their professionalism, their willingness to transmit their knowledge, and for making me feel so welcomed. This internship was an enriching experience in which I had the opportunity to meet, and learn from, well-known personalities who are today’s world references on the field. In the same way, it enabled me to both apply knowledge gained during my program in real-life projects and also develop skills in crucial areas such as video editing, production, content development, and visual expression. Skills that I realized are essential in the planning field when it comes to addressing different audiences whose understanding or awareness of the topic is varied.