Amanda Burden

Who is Amanda Burden?

Amanda Jay Mortimer Burden is the director of the New York City Department of City Planning and chair of the City Planning Commission.

She is a proponent of revitalizing Lower Manhattan, improving public access to the Brooklyn waterfronts, improving commuter rail into the city, and reconsidering rezoning plans, and she has a reputation of holding developers to stricter design standards than previous planning directors. As stated in a 2007 profile of Burden in The New York Times: "Whether walking up and down 368 blocks in Jamaica, Queens, to see which streets can accommodate 12-story buildings, or grabbing a tape measure from her desk to set the dimensions of seating in public plazas across the city, Ms. Burden is leaving an indelible legacy of how all five boroughs will look and feel for decades to come."

Burden previously worked for the New York State Urban Development Corporation. She worked on Battery Park City from 1983 to 1990. She is also a member of the International Best Dressed List since 1996.