Mr. James Rojas
Project Manager, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Los Angeles, CA

Native Angelino James Rojas is a planning advocate that understands the land use complexities of Los Angeles. He currently serves as a project manager for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Central Area Team where he funds pedestrian and transportation enhancement projects. Prior to joining the MTA in 1997, he worked as a planner with the City of Santa Monica.   

Mr. Rojas’ interest in urban issues stems in part from his experiences living in Europe, first in Germany and Italy where he spent four years with the U.S. Army.  Later, he served in the Peace Corps for three years in Budapest, Hungary organizing eastern European non-government organizations’ (NGOs) work on sustainable transportation.   

James Rojas is one of the few nationally recognized urban planners to examine U.S. Latino cultural influences on urban design.  He holds a Master of City Planning and a Master of Science of Architecture Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  His influential thesis on the Latino built environment has been widely cited.  For the past 14 years, Mr. Rojas has lectured extensively at universities, planning conferences, secondary schools, and grassroots community meetings on the impact of Latino populations on land use and transportation.   

Growing out of his research and writing on Latino land use, Mr. Rojas founded the Latino Urban Forum (LUF) in Los Angeles, dedicated to understanding and improving the built environment of Latino communities.  LUF has recruited successful professionals to lend their knowledge and influence to innovate and address the issues of the underserved, and often underprivileged, Latino communities of Los Angeles.  To date, over 300 volunteer architects, urban planners, public administrators, and lawyers have led the LUF to develop strategies and to provide technical expertise on numerous critical infrastructure and land use issues in the Latino community.   LUF publishes a weekly calendar of cultural and planning activities for over 700 national academic and media organizations, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, La Opinion, M.I.T., Harvard University, and U.C.L.A. in addition to scores of local community organizers.   Some of the LUF’s projects include: 

• Nacimiento(Nativity) Tour:  For the past four years, LUF has organized a tour of eastside naciementos erected in the front yards.   
• Evergreen Cemetery Jogging Path:  This urban recreational space transformed 1.5 miles of city sidewalk in the Boyle Heights community of Los Angeles into a rubberized jogging path.  Over 1,000 runners and walkers take advantage of this facility daily. 
• Cornfields State Park:  LUF was part of the Chinatown Alliance that fought to create this 32-acre park that was slated to become an industrial site along the Los Angeles River.
• Northeast Open Space Coalition (NELAO/S):  LUF has help residents in northeast Los Angeles preserve the natural beauty of their hillside communities.