J.F. Rodwell was born and educated in economics/urban planning/transportation at Oxford and Glasgow Universities. She emigrated to North America in her 20s. In the early 1990s she became a founding member of the first resident-built cohousing community in North America. She has been a strategic planner from the outset and says: “As a planner by training, experience and temperament, I can see around corners!” Green New Cities of Tomorrow began from the question “What makes some planned communities successful, while others fail?” The climate crisis then broadened the focus to not just planned but green cities.