Faculty and Staff
My major areas of research interest are: a) housing and community development issues - in particular federal, state and local housing policies and the development of affordable housing; b) growth management, where I am concerned about the benefits and costs of growth management polices and their distribution across different income populations; and c) land, infrastructure and housing market issues in developing countries especially those of South Asia and Latin America. In addition, I am interested in built-form and urban design issues. My teaching interests have much in common with my research interests.
Jerry's public engagement activities: http://www.ype.uiowa.edu/spotlight/archived/jerry-anthony.html
Mr. Beck has over 20 years of experience as a planning department director and has been involved in a wide range of land use and information management issues. He has been a presenter at local, regional and national conferences on topics including agricultural land preservation and growth management, GIS development and implementation, and management of planning and zoning offices.
Mr. Beck currently is the Director of the Linn County, Iowa Planning & Development Department and previously served as the Director of the Story County, Iowa Planning & Zoning Department. Mr. Beck is the immediate past President of the County Zoning Officials Organization, a Past-President of the Iowa Chapter of the American Planning Association, and has served on several state-level task forces. In addition he has taught growth management at Iowa State University and has done occasional private consulting work for GIS and zoning clients.
Mr. Beck attended Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa where he received his Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture and Master of Community and Regional Planning degrees. He was awarded The Design Achievement Award by Iowa State University in 2002.
I joined Urban and Regional Planning in 2001 and enjoy the different aspects of my work here and the people I assist, whether it be the faculty, students, alumni, or applicants to our program. My professional experience includes 17 years at the University of Iowa, on both the academic and medical sides, which has given me extensive knowledge of the University and the Iowa City community. In 2007 I received the university's certificate for completion of the Building Our Global Community program, giving me advanced knowledge of the needs of international students and how to best support them. I enjoy interacting with our international students, learning about thier cultures and serving as a community resource for them.
Once a year I put together the departmental newsletter which can require some sleuthing beforehand in order to update our contact information for alumni. I especially enjoy the process of searching for information and the satisfaction of knowing we are able to keep in touch with more of our alumni.
In 2007 I began supporting our graduating students with career assistance. In the spring of 2009, between January 1st and June 1st, a total of 1362 jobs and internships were posted for our students. If you are an employer or alum who would like our students to know about an entry level job or internship, please email the information to me and I will be happy to post it.
Hi everyone. I've been the Program Assistant since September 1999. I thoroughly enjoy it here! I love working with the students, faculty, staff and many other members throughout the University community. I especially like the variety of things I do. The academic setting in Urban and Regional Planning has inspired me to start taking a few classes. Currently Spanish is my main interest. I've enjoyed being in the classroom again!
Charles Connerly joined the University of Iowa planning program in 2008 as Professor and Director. He has written or co-authored over twenty-five journal articles or book chapters. His research has been published in top journals, including the Journal of the American Planning Association, the Journal of Planning Education and Research, the Journal of Planning Literature, Housing Studies, the Journal of Urban History, and Urban Affairs Quarterly. He authored a book published by the University of Virginia Press, The Most Segregated City in America: City Planning and Civil Rights in Birmingham, 1920-1980 (2005) and most recently co-edited Growth Management in Florida: Planning for Paradise, published by Ashgate Publishing in 2007.
The Most Segregated City was named one of the top 10 planning books in 2006 by Planetizen. In 2007 the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning named the book a recipient of the Paul Davidoff Award, which recognizes an outstanding book publication promoting participatory planning and positive social change, opposing poverty and racism as factors in society and seeking ways to reduce disparities between rich and poor; white and black; men and women. From 1991 to 1996, he served as co-editor of the Journal of Planning Education and Research and since 2001 he has been North American editor of Housing Studies. He taught urban planning at Florida State University from 1981 through 2008 and from 1998 through 2008 served as chair of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning.
I have been Admissions Director for the Planning Program since 1990, and our Admissions Committee works to bring a mixture of age, experience and backgrounds to the enrolling class each year. We seek students who want to make a difference, who come with individual strengths, and who will contribute and be challenged in this stimulating environment.
The Planning faculty and staff work closely with students at Iowa. New students form friendships readily in the large student area, and master the skills for becoming outstanding Planners through interesting and stimulating discussions, classroom experiences, field trips, and the two-semester (real-world) capstone Field Problems project.
Our alumni participate in Program evaluation, guest presentations, collaboration, and networking for job opportunities. The exceptional career assistance services provided for Planning students (including the posting of 60+ job and internship notices weekly) are a unique aspect of the program, and allow graduates to secure challenging and rewarding positions nationwide and internationally.
If you have any questions about our program or the admissions process, please feel free to contact me. My e-mail is suzanne-cowdery@uiowa.edu, and my telephone number is 319-335-0041 or (toll-free) 1-800-553-IOWA (4692), ext. 5-0041.
After a career in exploration with a major international oil company, I returned to academia and completed a Ph.D. in transportation / economic geography, examining the rejuvenation of the North American freight rail industry. I have lived in a number of US cities and also lived and traveled in Western Europe, as well as making business and pleasure trips to Canada (see photo), Mexico, Madagascar and Bolivia. In my teaching I am able to draw on my experiences with a wide variety of developing and developed country conditions, and on varying location and culture-dependent approaches to transportation, energy, and other planning issues.
All of my teaching and research activities share a common foundation in public sector economics and urban economics. My core course Economics for Policy Analysis I is intended to provide those same foundations to planning students. My recent research has focused on critical appraisals of the use of tax incentives as an economic development tool, particularly in enterprise zones; this has complemented my teaching in the area of development finance.A second major interest of mine is how the market system generates income inequality, and how state and local public policies and planning activities are shaped by, and in turn aggravate or alleviate, the problems of poverty and the fragmentation of metropolitan areas by income and race. These issues are a central focus of my course Poverty, Planning and Public Policy. I also believe that students need a solid grounding in analytical techniques. Major portions of my elective courses Community Development Finance and Financing Local Government are devoted to techniques of financial analysis applied to financing businesses in low-income neighborhoods or to problems in financing or pricing urban infrastructure.
The focus of my teaching and research has been transportation planning. I acquired over a decade of practical experience following the completion of my Ph.D., working in the Planning Division of a state Department of Transportation, and as the deputy executive director for the National Transportation Policy Study Commission. With my experience in producing transport plans, I teach a graduate course on how to develop transportation plans. In Transportation Planning Process, students analyze and evaluate actual air, rail, highway and urban plans and determine what is required to improve current plans. The Transportation Program Seminar Series allows students to explore current topics of interest in transportation.
I have recently been involved with the development of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, a U.S. Department of Transportation bureau which makes accessible a variety of information needed to improve transportation planning and policy making. My international interests include lecturing and grant affiliations in Venezuela, and consulting with Venezuela's ministry and metro rail system. A current focus has been cross-national comparison of transport information, and I am now working on reports covering transportation in Canada, Mexico and Japan.
My teaching and research activities focus on enhancing our understanding of the economic forces and policy interventions that help determine the shape and look of metropolitan areas and that present or aggravate pressing problems in contemporary cities. My research investigates the ability and limitations of public development policies to entice private businesses to locate, start up, or expand in regions where such growth would not otherwise occur but for the intervention. A closely related interest of mine is who benefits and who loses from such policies.
My courses in Economics for Policy Analysis, Economic Development Policy, Analytical Planning Methods, and Advanced GIS for Planners share a common aim to equip planners with the practical skills needed to succeed as critical analysts. Although I lean toward the technical side of urban and regional planning, my classes also draw from practitioner experiences as a state workforce development planner that acquainted me to the political realities encountered by most analysts in the public sphere.
My major teaching and research interests are: urban and environmental infrastructure planning, computer technology in planning, and planning methodology. I draw on my undergraduate and graduate education in civil engineering, my formal planning education as well as my experiences as a professional planner, to research the question "How does infrastructure planning, design, and provision affect the natural and built environments?" I introduce analytical methods to planning students in my core course. My other courses extend the analytical methods to the evaluation of the impacts of transportation and environmental infrastructure on society.
Teaching the Applied GIS for Planners course with my colleague Dan Swartzendruber, has provided me the opportunity to share my experiences as a GIS Coordinator for Johnson County, Iowa with the students. GIS effects how county departments collect and disseminate information, especially within the Planning and Zoning Department. Applied GIS in Planning exposes students with little GIS experience to the potential that this type of system can offer an organization if properly managed and maintained. As the demand on the world's resources continues to increase, having timely and accurate computer models of reality produced within a GIS will be critical to proper planning and administration activities.
Lucie studies the effects of toxic sites on local populations and the participation of citizens in environmental planning decision-making processes. Some of her previous research, funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, focused on the effects of Superfund sites on the communities surrounding them. She now works on the evaluation of Community Advisory Boards as participatory mechanisms used for the cleanup of toxic sites.
Since 1998, she has been involved in a New Zealand-based research project on environmental planning processes. The project, titled "Planning Under a Cooperative Mandate," focuses on the implementation of local environmental plans with regard to water quality, urban design, and citizen participation in the planning process. Dr. Laurian is involved in research about the interactions between the planning and public health disciplines. She teaches a "Healthy Cities" class focused on environmental planning and health.
My areas of focus are transportation and land use relationships, transportation policy, economic geography, and sustainability. I am interested in how comprehensive planning of land use and transportation networks can enhance accessibility, economic productivity, and energy efficiency. Also, I am interested in assessing the effectiveness of public transportation projects in urban and rural areas.
My courses in planning methods, transportation and land use, and sustainable planning share the same interests as my research. In the elective courses, I introduce case studies to enhance the understanding of the issues.
Alan Peters is Associate Dean in the Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Design at the University of Sydney, where he is also Professor and Head of Urban and Regional Planning and Director of the Planning Research Centre. He has consulted to state and local governments in a number of countries. His teaching and research interests include Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and development (particularly economic development) policy, topics on which he has published a number of well-regarded books, articles and monographs. Among other things, he is currently working on a National Science Foundation sponsored project with two University of Iowa faculty looking at the impact of state business taxes on growth, and a book on the spatial analysis of census data.
Schott is the Associate Director of the Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Iowa. In this capacity, he is responsible for delivery of the Institute of Public Affairs organizational improvement programs to local government elected officials and staff, including: Strategic Planning and Goal Setting, Educational Programs and Information, Professional Development, Public Management Assistance, and Information and Publications.
From 1987–2006, Schott was City Manager for the City of Marion, Iowa, with extensive experience in general administration, budget/finance, human resource management, facilities planning and development, intergovernmental relations, and strategic planning. Schott served as Vice President for Economic development with the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Area Chamber of Commerce from 1986–87. He was also Community Development Director for the City of Marion, Iowa, from 1977–86, Planning Coordinator/Assistant Community Development Director for the City of Muscatine, Iowa from 1975–77, and Comprehensive Planning Coordinator for the City of Utica, New York from 1974–75.
Jim Schwab serves as the manager of the American Planning Association's Hazards Planning Research Center. He is also a senior research associate and co-editor of a monthly publication, Zoning Practice. He has increasingly carved out a niche as an expert on natural hazards and disaster recovery over the last 15 or more years. Jim served as the primary author and principal investigator for Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery and Redevelopment (PAS Report No. 483/484, 1998), which APA produced under a cooperative agreement with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He has been the sole author of two other PAS Reports, Industrial Performance Standards for a New Century (No. 444, 1993) and Planning and Zoning for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (No. 482, 1998). He served as the project manager for a FEMA-supported project in which APA has developed training for planners on the planning provisions of the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000, and for the Firewise Communities Post-Workshop Assessment, a contract with the National Fire Protection Association to determine the impact of its Firewise workshops on community behavior. He managed a project funded by the National Fire Protection Association that has resulted in a new PAS Report, Planning for Wildfires (No. 529/530, 2005), co-authored with Stuart Meck. With Stuart Meck and Rebecca Retzlaff, he co-authored Regional Approaches to Affordable Housing (No. 513/514, 2003). He was also the principal investigator and primary author of Tribal Transportation Programs, a 2007 report produced for the Transportation Research Board. He was the project manager and general editor for a new PAS Report, Planning the Urban Forest: Ecology, Economy, and Community Development, released in January 2009. In addition, he has worked on hazards and disaster recovery issues in the Dominican Republic and Sri Lanka, spoken in Taiwan, and was a Visiting Fellow in 2008 for the Centre for Advanced Engineering in New Zealand.
Jim is also the author of two books. The first, Raising Less Corn and More Hell: Midwestern Farmers Speak Out, was published in 1988 by the University of Illinois Press. It is an oral history of the farm crisis that affected the Midwest during the 1980s. The second, Deeper Shades of Green: The Rise of Blue-Collar and Minority Environmentalism in America, was released by Sierra Club Books in 1994. He is currently at work on a book about the 1993 and 2008 Midwest floods.
Jim is an alumnus of the University of Iowa (1985), with M.A.s in both Journalism and Urban and Regional Planning, and has a B.A. in Political Science from Cleveland State University (1973).
I have approximately 10 years of experience as a Planner; initially for Johnson County and now for Linn County, Iowa. In my current position as Planning and Zoning Division Manager for Linn County, I have the opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects involving current and long-range planning activities. Of particular interest to me is the integration of the county's GIS into the framework of the development review process, as well as utilizing the technology extensively as an analytical tool for planning studies and plan preparation. My hope is that by integrating relevant, real-world GIS and planning experiences into the course that I co-teach with my colleague Rick Havel, we might better prepare the students in their future careers as Planners.
I am a staff regional scientist in the department of economics and a lecturer in community and regional planning at Iowa State University. My research focus is in small area economic analysis, community economics education, and the regional consequence of economic and social change. I conduct many industrial assessments annually, which include industrial and fiscal impact studies associated with firm growth or decline, and I directly consult with or provide technical assistance to state and local government agencies and to other public associations. As an instructor, I teach planning analysis and techniques courses at Iowa State University, and an introduction to economic impact assessment at the University of Iowa.
In my courses and research, I seek to construct and articulate persuasive visions of what might constitute a just and sustainable future for cities and regions. I also teach practical and politically-astute ways to understand, address, and potentially resolve the conflicts which inevitably occur when visions conflict. When discussing conflict and its potential resolution through argumentation, negotiation, mediation, and collaborative processes, I draw heavily on my own diverse practical experiences. These have included being a planner, a consultant, a researcher, an elected city councilman, and a human rights and environmental advocate.
Conceiving of planning as a process that is simultaneously political and technical, I encourage students to read and listen actively; that is, to discern how particular planning-related arguments are constructed, how those arguments are linked to larger narratives, and how those narratives often tend to obscure or ignore the potential merits of other arguments and narratives. Given the planner's need to act within a context of differing interests and perspectives, I also teach students how to argue persuasively in the face of questions and counter-claims. To teach these skills well, I have found it important to conduct most of my classes as a dialogue between the readings, the students, and myself.