Michael Perles

Michael Perles is an urban planner and organizer interested in non-speculative housing alternatives, public and community ownership, land equity, and environmental justice. He is currently working with the National Public Housing Network, an effort to fight for public housing as critical social and economic infrastructure. He serves on the board of the Cooper Square MHA - the deeply affordable housing co-op that is part of the Cooper Square CLT, NYC’s oldest community land trust - and organizes to build tenant power with city and state housing organizations and tenant unions. He is an adjunct faculty member in the Urban Policy and Planning program at Hunter College - CUNY and at Columbia GSAPP.

Michael has previously worked at Hester Street; the NYC Department of Housing, Preservation and Development (HPD); WXY Studio; Philip Habib and Associates; and at The Earth Institute. Michael holds an M.S. in Urban Planning from Columbia GSAPP, where he researched public housing typologies in Berlin and Tokyo and completed his thesis on grassroots, climate-focused tenant organizing within the New York City Housing Authority. He received his bachelor’s in Environmental Studies from the University of Michigan.