Emerald Strategies · Christina McInerney, AICP
Every community has a story worth telling. So does every firm that serves them.
I'm an urban planner. For more than a decade I've helped communities turn complex, technical work into plans that hold up. I also help the firms in this industry do the same for their own work — their proposals, their pursuits, the story of what they do. The skill underneath is the same: take something complex and make it clear enough that people can act on it. A plan needs that. So does a proposal.
For communities
Community & Planning
Comprehensive plans, revitalization programs, GIS, engagement, and grant support — rigorous planning that stays readable.
For firms
Strategy & Pursuit Support
Positioning, qualifications, and pursuit strategy — the story a firm tells to win the right work, grounded in how that work actually gets done.
Hi, I'm Christina.
The best planning work has to do two things at once: be technically sound, and be legible.
I'm an AICP-certified urban planner, GIS analyst, and strategist with more than a decade of experience across New York State and New Jersey. My career has taken me from the MTA's bus network in New York City to Monroe County's planning department, through nearly nine years in the planning practice of a national engineering and design firm.
More than a decade inside established firms taught me how this work gets done well. I started Emerald Strategies to bring that experience straight to communities and the firms that serve them — as a focused, senior resource they can work with one on one.
A plan has to work technically — the data, the regulations, the feasibility. And it has to connect: with the people who live with it, and the reviewers who approve it. Most people build one of those skills. I built both.
So Emerald Strategies does two kinds of work, rooted in the same place. I help communities find their direction and turn it into plans that hold up. And I help the firms in this industry make their own work clear — their qualifications, their proposals, the story of what they do. Same instinct, aimed at a different reader.
Two kinds of work, one foundation.
Planning is the core of what I do — it's where I've spent my career, working with municipalities, planning firms, and engineering consultants on a project, retainer, or subconsultant basis. The firm-side work grew out of that same experience.
For communities
Community & Planning
Plans that hold up with reviewers — and mean something to the people they're for.
Community Development & Revitalization Planning
Program-funded work across New York's core planning initiatives — BOA, DRI, NY Forward, and LWRP — including implementation studies, strategic investment plans, community profiles, site selection, and land use and zoning recommendations.
Comprehensive & Long-Range Planning
Comprehensive and smart growth plans, climate action and resilience plans, and open space and recreation plans across New York and New Jersey — including New Jersey Master Plan climate vulnerability assessments (CCRHVA) and resilience action plans. I also turn technical subconsultant reports into cohesive, readable documents.
GIS Analysis & Spatial Storytelling
Parcel and zoning analysis, land use mapping, site identification, and community profiles — spatial work that informs decisions and reads clearly to public and technical audiences alike.
Community Engagement & Public Communications
Meeting materials, surveys, project websites, display boards, and social content — built for complex or sensitive processes like brownfield redevelopment, waterfront planning, and climate resilience.
Grant Writing & Funding Support
Grant narratives and project profiling that align community priorities with program requirements — including Restore NY and Consolidated Funding Application (CFA) submissions — across NYS programs administered through the Department of State (NYSDOS) and Empire State Development (ESD).
For firms
Strategy & Pursuit Support
I've done this work from the inside — that's what grounds the strategy I offer.
Positioning & Messaging
Clarifying what a firm does best and how to say it, so it comes through consistently in qualifications, proposals, and how the firm presents itself.
Qualifications & Capability Development
Statements of qualifications, capability statements, project experience sheets, and leadership profiles — built to be modular and reused across pursuits.
Proposal & Pursuit Strategy
Proposal writing and design, win themes, pursuit planning, and teaming positioning — grounded in what selection committees actually respond to.
Visual Direction & Document Design
Design direction and publication-ready production, so the story looks as considered as it reads.
Why it works
Two kinds of storytelling. One practice.
Most people in this industry do one or the other — they're inside a community planning process, or they're producing pursuit materials for a firm. I've built my career on the first. It's what lets me do the second well.
When I help a community find its direction, I bring the technical fluency to know what's feasible — and the communication instinct to make it land with real people, not just reviewers.
When I help a firm win or deliver, I bring the community perspective — what actually resonates, what builds trust, what a plan or a proposal needs to say to be useful beyond the deadline.
I've spent years producing the work itself, and that's what I bring when I turn to strategy — a feel for what a plan or a proposal actually needs to land.
Take something complex, find the story inside it, and make it work on the page.
The planner who makes it cohere
I take the technical work, the analysis, and the community input, and turn it into a plan that reads as one clear thing.
Experience you can draw on
More than a decade of planning work — comprehensive, climate, resilience, open space — produced on multidisciplinary teams, from first analysis to final plan.
Fluent in the programs
BOA, DRI, NY Forward, LWRP, and New Jersey's Master Plan climate requirements — I know what each asks for and what gets a plan approved.
Contact
Let's talk.
Whether you're a municipality working through a planning process, a firm looking for a trusted subconsultant, or a team that needs strategic support on a pursuit — I'd love to hear what you're working on.
The first conversation is always just a conversation.
Based in Rochester, NY — working across New York State and New Jersey.