Letter from the Chair of Planning

Welcome to the Department of City and Regional Planning, also known as PennPlanning.

If you are thinking about applying to Penn Planning, please check out our MCP (Master of City Planning) and PhD degree programs, our certificate and dual degree programs, and our admissions procedures and deadlines.

If you are a returning student and are wondering what's new and what courses to take this semester, read on. Also, be sure to check the updated core curriculum and concentration requirements, some of which have changed a bit.

If you are an alum or friend, read on to see what our students and faculty have been up to, as well as some of the lecture and speaker series on tap for this year.

This year, 2009-2010, promises to be a great one for PennPlanning. In September, we welcomed our largest first-year MCP class ever-78 new and enthusiastic students. We're elevating our curriculum to make it more responsive and cutting edge, we are taking on challenging new studio assignments, and we're working closer with other academic departments in PennDesign, and public planning throughout southeastern Pennsylvania and beyond.

First, however, I must start with the sad news that Kathleen Crossin passed away this September after a long illness. For more than 35 years, Kathleen made sure that generations of PennPlanning students took the courses they were supposed to and graduated with the experience and preparation needed to take on the professional world. Kathleen loved working with PennPlanning students and faculty, and she in turn was loved by them. We miss her immensely, and will be establishing a staff award in her memory.

Last spring was a big one for PennPlanning students and studios. Professor Jonathan Barnett's fall 2008 studio investigating the effects of climate change on the (entire) Delaware River basin won the American Planning Association's award for best student project. Working with Philadelphia Planning Commissioner Allan Greenberger, WRT senior partner Richard Bartholomew, and PennPraxis Director Harris Steinberg, three second-year studios took on the daunting task of re-visioning all of Philadelphia for 2040, culminating in a City Hall presentation to Mayor Nutter and his senior staff. Continuing this work, eight students in the Philadelphia 2040 studios established The Planning Collective, a future-oriented "planning think tank" to take on Philladelphia's toughest problems. A little further from home, Professor Michael Larice's urban design studio took on an even more difficult task: redesigning Abu Dhabi's auto-oriented downtown to make it more walkable and memorable. Extracts from the final reports of all of these studios are available on PennPlanning's website.

PennPlanners just can't seem to stop winning awards. In early October, Professor Eugenie Birch won the Association of Collegiate School's of Planning's Distinguished Educator Award, ACSP's highest award, given to the planning academic who has coupled teaching, scholarship and service to generations of planning students. Second-year MCP student Bryan Rodda took home ACSP's McClure Prize for the Best Graduate Student Paper. More recently, at the annual meeting of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History (SACRPH), Genie received the Lawrence Gerkens Award in recognition for her demonstrated and sustained excellence in teaching planning history. The same SACRPH meeting saw Professor Domenic Vitiello win the 2009 Catherine Bauer Wurster Award for the best article best article in the Journal of Urban History for his study of early 20th Century Philadelphia entitled, "Machine Building and City Building: Urban Planning and Industrial Restructuring in Philadelphia, 1894-1928." Not last and not least, Professors Michael Larice and Marja Hoek-Smit won the 2009 G. Holmes Perkins Award for Distinguished Teaching. Prof. Larice won the Perkins Award for standing faculty, and Prof. Hoek-Smit won it for practicing faculty. Please join me in congratulating all these award winners.

There also news on MCP curriculum and course front. Last spring, the faculty voted to split the previous Urban Development concentration into two: Urban Design, and Public-Private Development. These two new concentrations join Community & Economic Development; and Land Use-Transportation-Environmental Planning. New and re-invigorated courses this fall include Green Development (taught by yours truly and PennDesign Senior Fellow Mark Alan Hughes); Urban Housing Policy (taught by WRT Senior Planner Gil Rosenthal); High-Speed Rail Seminar (taught by Practice Professor Robert Yaro and Dean Marilyn Taylor), and Downtown Development (taught by Center City District Executive Director Paul Levy.) Our large incoming class has led us to split several core courses in two, most notably Urban Economics, which is being taught by Professor Laura Wolf-Powers and Econsult's Peter Angelides; and Introduction to GIS, taught by Professors Dana Tomlin and Amy Hillier; Planning Methods, both sections (!) of which are ably taught by Professor Rachel Weinberger; and Introductory Graphics, with Lecturer Jonathan Fogelson also doing double duty. Saving the best for last, the City Planning and Landscape Architecture departments are collaborating this fall on a true joint studio (taught by Professors Michael Larice, Cindy Sanders, and David Gouvernour) ambitiously focused on how to restore and develop the Sunoco lands along the south Schukyll area of Philadelphia. Watch this space because even more changes and innovations are coming this spring, including a complete renumbering of all city planning courses (the first in 40 years) topically aligning concentration courses and sequentially aligning core courses. Thanks to Kate Daniel, Roslynne Carter, and PennDesign Registrar Rick Dunn for making this long overdue renumbering a reality.

We have five exciting and high impact studios planned for this coming spring semester. Professor Robert Yaro will lead a studio planning for station area development along the proposed Northeast Corridor High Speed Rail system. Professor Jonathan Barnett will lead an urban design/development studio looking at TOD opportunities in Florida. PennPraxis Director Harris Steinberg will lead a comprehensive green infrastructure and urban infill studio covering all of Southeastern Pennsylvania. Gil Rosenthal will lead a housing and community development studio coming up with Hope VI-Plus plans for Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, DC; and the planning faculty as a whole will lead a Planning and Policy Evaluation studio for those students who want to work individually evaluating a cutting edge policy or planning approach.

John Landis, Chair
127 Meyerson Hall
210 South 34th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
T: 215-898-8329
F: 215-898-5731
cityplan@design.upenn.edu