Matthew Frater

Matthew comes to the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture from Minneapolis, MN, where he spent twelve years collaborating with small businesses owners, immigrant families, and low-income households working to overcome barriers to access and opportunity. While in Minnesota, Matthew completed a degree in Urban Studies, History, and Community Development from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, working to create contemporary solutions to persistent barriers through a focus in educational reinvestment, neighborhood development, and social justice.

A believer in holistic solutions to the inequity planners have built into social and physical environments, Matthew is a proponent of organizational shifts structured to recognize patterns of disinvestment. He believes that recognition is the first step to ideation, collaboration, and creation of policies that will work to foster individual and community health – for everyone. If you were to ask him how he would want to change the world, he would undoubtedly tell you that ensuring everyone access to affordable, safe, and stable housing of their choosing is the first step in realizing equality of opportunity.

Raised in rural Wisconsin, he understands the need for progressive and innovative development techniques to better serve communities in all areas, but especially the preferential need for policies that invest in communities that carry histories of trauma and vulnerability. Seeing that policy solutions are unique from state to state, neighborhood to neighborhood, and individual to individual, Matthew values new perspectives and partnerships, and is constantly searching for people who will share those with him.

Currently pursuing a M.S. in Urban and Regional Planning here in DPLA, serving as Chair of the Wisconsin Student Planning Association, and working in Community Development for the City of Madison, Matthew is happy to be back in his home state. He truly believes there is no better place to be. When not at Music Hall you can find him hiking with his dog through backcountry trails, fishing streams to the west, or pretending to catch up on the latest fair housing publications while watching Doctor Who.