City and Regional Planning

Eugenie Birch (right) and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (center) at a meeting of the General Assembly of Partners at UN Habitat III

Making a Global Commitment to Inclusive Cities

This century will see a substantial majority of the world’s population living in urban centers, and the challenges to both the public and private sectors are manifold. In working toward a coordinated global response, Eugenie Birch, Lawrence C. Nussdorf Professor of Urban Research and Education in the Department of City and Regional Planning and Co-Director, Penn Institute for Urban Research, led a 24-person delegation from Penn at Habitat III, the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Development held in Quito, Ecuador.

PennDesign's Vincent Reina Honored by Association of Public Policy and Management

Vincent Reina, Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning, has received the 2016 Ph.D. Dissertation Award from the Association of Public Policy and Management (APPAM) for his work at the University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy.

Excerpt: Francesca Russello Ammon on the Bulldozer's Wartime Boost

Although the decades following World War II stand out as an era of rapid growth and construction in the United States, those years were equally significant for large-scale destruction. Francesca Russello Ammon's 

Kleinman Center Shines at Energy Symposium

Can an 18-month old program hold its own with others that are decades-old? The answer is a resounding Yes, as Mark Alan Hughes and Cornelia Colijn discovered recently. The faculty director and deputy director, respectively, of PennDesign’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy recently joined their peers for the two-day University Energy Initiative Symposium at MIT co-sponsored by the Institute’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Phase 01 of the new Peace Park begins construction. Photocredit: Gordon Stillman

On Black Space & Black Lives

Last week at my job a white man in a suit walked into our building asking for someone whose name we did not know but worked for our landlord. While my coworker and I looked perplexed, someone appeared outside our building waving at the man to come outside.

PhD Candidate Billy Fleming Urges Landscape Architects: It's Time to Get Political

Billy Fleming, PhD Candidate in the Department of City and Regional Planning, writes about the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s Summit on Landscape Architecture and the Future hosted by&nbs

Planning Chair John Landis Advises PA Legislature on State’s Evolving Cities

On September 27, Crossways Professor and City and Regional Planning Department Chair John Landis testified before the Senate Majority Policy Committee (

Excerpt: Frederick Steiner on Ecological Thinking

Humans have always been influenced by natural landscapes, and always will be—even as we create ever-larger cities and our developments fundamentally change the nature of the earth around us.

Apprentices Ky and Robert learning about solar installation.

Serenity Soular Installation: From funding to design

The PennPraxis Serenity Soular team (Laura Rigell MCP ’17, Cari Krol MCP ’17, Nikita Jathan MArch ’18, Margaret Gregg MArch ‘18) embarked upon the next phase of its collaboration with Serenity House and Swarthmore College in June 2016.

Guerra, Marcinkoski Awarded University Research Grants to Address Pedestrian Safety, Speculative Urbanization

Erick Guerra, Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning, and Christopher Marcinkoski, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, have been awarded competitive grants from the University Research Foundation (URF) for the 2016 - 2017 Academic Year.

Five Questions for Stefan Al

Associate Professor of Urban Design Stefan Al is a Dutch-born architect and urban designer who has written widely about cities, including informal settlements, industrial towns, commercial developments, and high-density environments.

Proposal for NYC Aquarium and Public Waterfront by PennDesign Dean-designate Fritz Steiner and Merroir

Reimagining the Aquarium, Transportation Thought Leaders, Architecture in the Media

The work of Merroir, a four-part team that includes PennDesign Dean-designate Fritz Steiner, was recently s

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