Seymour Mandelbaum

Biography

We are deeply saddened to let you know that that Seymour Mandelbaum, Professor Emeritus of City and Regional Planning at PennDesign, passed away - read more.

B.A., Columbia University
Ph.D., Princeton University

Professor Mandelbaum teaches courses in the fields of planning theory, communication policy and planning, international comparative planning, community design, and urban history.

He is primarily interested in the formation and development of human communities, the moral orders which shape these communities and the flows of individuals and information through them. Currently he is involved in research on two complementary themes: planning intelligence and the democratization of access to knowledge.

Dr. Mandelbaum is editor of the Gordon and Breach international series of case studies under the title Cities and Regions: Planning, Policy and Management. The first volume, on Battery Park City, was published in 1997; the second, on the suburban expansion of Sydney, Australia, became available in the spring of 1999. Titles on planning in Israel, Warsaw, and Rome are forthcoming.

He is the editor of Explorations in Planning Theory and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Planning Education, Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, The Responsive Community, Journal of Planning Literature, and Town Planning Review.

In recent years he has devoted a good deal of effort to the affairs of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. Currently he is chair of the Conference Committee.

Professor Mandelbaum's most recent book Open Moral Communities deals with a communitarian sensibility and the ways in which policy and planning arguments are set within myths of community.

Professor Mandelbaum was recently honored by an entire issue of Planning Theory devoted to his work.