Aaron Lao

He/his

Adjunct Professor

Aaron is an urban planner at the City of Vancouver with a focus in community planning, policy development, social and cultural planning, and equitable planning practices. While at the City, he has worked in both long-range planning and rezoning for Downtown, the Downtown Eastside, and South Vancouver. He has also done cultural planning on the Chinatown Transformation Team, policy planning on the Vancouver Plan, and emergency response on the Ethnocultural Communities Branch of the Emergency Operation Centre. He is currently a housing planner with the Vancouver Affordable Housing Agency. In 2022, Aaron joined SCARP as an Adjunct Professor teaching the PLAN 595 course, Planning with People: Facilitation and Public Engagement.

His research at SCARP examined how policy-makers can better use visuals communicate complex information - these findings are published in a guide for planners called 'Planning Visually' (linked below). In all of his roles, Aaron is focused on advancing equity and changing the way we do planning to work better for communities.

Aaron, sitting on staircase in grey suit
UBC Crest The official logo of the University of British Columbia. Arrow An arrow indicating direction. Arrow in Circle An arrow indicating direction. Caret An arrowhead indicating direction. E-commerce Cart A shopping cart. Time A clock. Chats Two speech clouds. Facebook The logo for the Facebook social media service. Home A house in silhouette. Information The letter 'i' in a circle. Instagram The logo for the Instagram social media service. Linkedin The logo for the LinkedIn social media service. Location Pin A map location pin. Mail An envelope. Telephone An antique telephone. Play A media play button. Search A magnifying glass. Arrow indicating share action A directional arrow. Speech Bubble A speech bubble. Speaker emmitting sound A speaker emmitting sound. Star An outline of a star. Twitter The logo for the Twitter social media service. Urgent Message An exclamation mark in a speech bubble. User A silhouette of a person. Vimeo The logo for the Vimeo video sharing service. Youtube The logo for the YouTube video sharing service. Future of work A logo for the Future of Work category. Inclusive leadership A logo for the Inclusive leadership category. Planetary health A logo for the Planetary health category. Solutions for people A logo for the Solutions for people category. Thriving cities A logo for the Thriving cities category. University for future A logo for the University for future category.