welcome…
The image above was created by generative AI and is but one example of how technology and data are increasingly mediating how we understand and interact with both the built and natural environment as well as one another. Planners and planning as a field should proactively engage with emerging technologies to leverage these tools and their benefits in support of the public interest and in keeping with our disciplinary values.
I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia. My research and teaching are situated at the confluence of technology and planning, with a particular emphasis on environmental and land use applications.
The nature of urban planning is changing with the increasing polarization of society, daily reminders of the threat posed by climate change, and the constant march of technology as important contributing factors. Today it sometimes feels as if any semblance of a shared “public interest” is dissolving, which makes it difficult to craft and implement effective policy or planning interventions.
(Urbana, IL)
(Cape May, NJ)
(Charlottesville, VA)
Although the climate crisis is not the only environmental challenge we are facing, in my view it is the most fundamental and poses an existential threat for human societies. Dramatic declines in biodiversity; pollution of the air, soil, and water; and persistent disparities in health outcomes across socioeconomic classes are all traceable to the ways that we think about and manage our natural and built environments.
“We must learn again to ask how we can make the most of what we are, what we have, and what we have been given.”
Wendell Berry, Faustian Economics
Evidence and research by themselves are not enough to move the proverbial needle. At its core, climate change is a coordination problem that exceeds the capacity of our existing political and social systems and infrastructure. Political science has been defined as the scientific study of politics but what we need at this moment is innovation and widespread adoption of political (civic) technologies to bridge and navigate deepening divisions here in the United States around the changing climate. Institutions are a type of technology and we need them to evolve and improve in ways that we have come to expect with other technologies. Universities can play an important role in responding to grand challenges like global climate change while respecting the idiosyncrasies of place and appropriately drawing upon local knowledge and community assets.
