Isaac F. Megbolugbe, MCP ‘82, PhD ‘83, Vice President of Research and Policy, the Fannie Mae Foundation, is responsible for establishing the strategic direction and research agenda for the Foundation. He aims to structure research affiliations and links within the Foundation’s network of partnerships to maximize the Foundation’s innovative “virtual think tank” operating style. Prior to joining the Foundation, Megbolugbe served as project leader for PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Housing Finance Group and later as the housing finance industry expert with PWC’s Center for Financial Intermediaries. Before joining PWC, Megbolugbe was both Senior Director for Research and Evaluation, as well as of Senior Director for Housing Finance Research at the Fannie Mae Foundation. He has been on the faculty at the American University and Florida State University. He currently serves on the board of directors of the American Real Estate Society and American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association. He has written more than eighty scholarly articles on housing policy and housing finance. Megbolugbe came to Penn because two of his professors from the University of Ibadan, his undergraduate institution, were Penn graduates. Additionally, William Grigsby’s pacesetting book, Housing Markets and Public Policy (1963), influenced his choice. After one semester, he entered the Ph.D. program at the suggestion of Professor Seymour Mandelbaum. Megbolugbe focused his studies on housing and analytical methods supplementing departmental offering with various courses at Wharton and the Law School to deepen his skills in real estate analysis, valuation and development. Megbolugbe teaches the department’s introductory course on housing and community development. He said “I taught the housing course as a way of giving something back to Penn. Penn, through its reputation and also via support of the faculty have been good to my career and me. I get instant credibility once people know that I am a graduate of Penn, especially that I had the good fortune of working with the likes of William Grigsby, Peter Linneman and Seymour Mandelbaum.” He reports, “The quality of the students in the course was superb. The class discussions were tremendously energizing.” His memories of Penn include the lifelong friends he made among faculty and fellow students alike. His current boss, James Carr was a classmate and one of those friends. Marja Hoek-Smit and William Grigsby became his “adopted” parents in the U.S. He also has good memories working as Seymour Mandelbaum’s assistant and also teaching an urban economics class with Britton Harris.
The Link 2001 Special Golden Anniversary Edition
The City Planning Department Celebrates Alumni
Herbert Gans, PhD ‘57 is the Robert S. Lind Professor in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University is Penn’s first graduate of its PhD program in City Planning. After completing his doctorate, he took a faculty position in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and then moved to Columbia where he has concentrated on urban sociology, poverty and antipoverty policy, stratification and equality, ethnicity, the news media, and popular culture. He is the author of nine books and more than 160 articles. He has recently completed his latest book, Making Sense of America, Sociological Analyses and Essays (1999). He is also past president of the American Sociological Association and the Eastern Sociological Society. In the course of his career, Gans has made outstanding and noteworthy contributions to the field. While at Penn he was inspired by Martin Meyerson and John Dyckman who helped him develop the critical faculties that would lead to his seminal study The Urban Villagers (1959), an outgrowth of his dissertation, and to The Levittowners (1967), one of the nation’s first suburban studies. Together, these works would transform the theory and practice of planning.
Using participant observation methods for both books he first examined Boston’s West End, the site of a major slum clearance project in the fifties, demonstrating that contemporary definitions for “blight” overlooked the fact that within the physically deteriorated neighborhood was a strong, healthy civic infrastructure. This finding led later policymakers, who now realized the importance if preserving communities, to focus on rehabilitation programs. A few years later, his work in Levittown also revealed the nature of community’s social organization highlighting class divisions that led to bitter debate about municipal activities especially regarding education and land use regulation, issues that continue to characterize suburban life today. His latest book, Making Sense of America Sociological Analysis and Essays containing reflections on his work in the West End and on urban poverty. When Dr. Gans attended Penn’s 50th Anniversary Gala he enjoyed seeing the renovated Fine Arts library and noticed the many changes to campus. He felt that the campus felt somewhat suburban with all the new shopping mall-like stores, a sharp contrast to the Penn he attended. He recalled the view of Center City and the PSFS building he admired from the bathroom window of his tenement house on 36th Street. (The tenement house has since been torn down.) His advice for current students is: “The best work you do is the work that interests you the most.”
James Nelson Kise, BArch ‘59, MArch ‘63, MCP ‘64 is the founding principal of Kise Straw & Kolodner, Architects, Planners, and Historians. His current projects include the connection between I-95 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the revision of the connection from I-95 to Frankford via Cottman Avenue. He is also working on a plan for Eastern North Philadelphia for the Philadelphia Housing Authority to identify new Keystone Opportunity Zones with strong potential housing markets. In 1999, he was the Philadelphia designer for the proposed DisneyQuest project at 8th and Market Streets until the project’s collapse. Of the many accomplishments in his career, Kise says that he is proudest of his work in Center City Philadelphia where he prepared a number of key studies that have helped shape downtown. One, the plan for the “Avenue of the Arts” (South Broad Street), included the siting of the city’s regional performing arts center, now under construction. In others he was involved in decisions regarding the placement of the Convention Center, the Liberty Bell, and the restoration of Chestnut Street. Kise has fond memories of his adventures in planning abroad. Before graduating from Penn, he spent a year in Venezuela helping prepare the town plan for Ciudad Guayana as part of the project team from the Joint Center of Urban Studies of MIT and Harvard. Later he headed the project team for Sadat City, a new town in Egypt located halfway between Cairo and Alexandria. The city now has 500,000 inhabitants. Looking to the future, Kise expects to undertake “smart growth” initiatives. He thinks that planners should have a larger role in developing the urban agenda. He explained that engineers often drive transportation plans with little concern for land use. National, state and local planning issues are often devoid of planners as leaders. As an example, he cites the fact that the executive director of the Philadelphia Planning Commission is not a member of the Mayor’s cabinet. Kise has kept in close touch with the Department. For the last five years, he has taught a popular second-year studio. This past year he teamed with Paul Levy, head of the Philadelphia Community Development Corporation, to look at Alleghany West, an area north of Center City. In the past, his class has addressed planning issues in Camden, New Jersey, Wilmington, Delaware and Philadelphia’s Port Richmond,. Recently, he has taken on a leadership role in the newly invigorated GSFA Alumni/ae Association. Being well-connected to Penn, Kise thinks that the recent changes to the campus have fostered better integration with the surrounding neighborhood. Close to home, Kise sees a new eagerness and commitment among today’s planning students. He advises current students to “Work hard. Learn both theory and practice.”
Gabby Jones, MCP ‘98 is Director of Economic Development, Partnership Community Development Corporation, a key redevelopment organization in West Philadelphia in January 2001. Previously a project manager for the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, she covered Center City and University City, and worked on the new Phillies stadium and the Philadelphia Convention Center expansion. In her new position, Jones is responsible for the Partnership CDC’s economic development projects including the West Philadelphia Economic Development Strategy, and the 40th Street, 52nd Street, and 60th Street economic development projects. Community and Economic Development. Jones reflects that her best memories of Penn are of the people she met, many of whom will be lifelong friends and of her first trip abroad, a two-week charette in Santander, Spain arranged by Visiting Professor Alfonso Vegara and underwritten by Overseer Harvey Kroiz. Jones often finds herself close to campus. She loves Penn’s recent improvements, because she thinks they will help attract students to the university. Jones advises current students to take advantage of the other schools at Penn in order to understand larger policies in the work world.
Fifty Years of Excellence… Fifty Years of Tradition is a phrase that has deep meaning for this department. For five decades our faculty and students have contributed blood, sweat and tears to build this reality. As you read this selection of alumni profiles, which merely scratches the surface of our nearly 2,000 graduates, you can’t help but see how true this is. Our graduates form the base of our excellence. They have entered all aspects of planning. They are and have been practitioners in the public and private sectors changing the faces of our cities and regions.
They are and have been distinguished teachers and researchers who have made a difference to practice. As we illustrate the accomplishments of this group, the Department plans to expand its recognition of its graduates by adding a new alumni section to our web page (http://www.upenn.edu/gsfa/ city_plan/index.htm) so check it regularly to find out more about your colleagues. And send us your news. We would love to include it. Just drop me a line or email: elbirch@pobox.upenn.edu Other indicators mark our excellence as well. For example, Penn graduates and faculty constitute the largest cohort in the College of Fellows the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). This past spring, Martin Meyerson and Tony Tomazinis were inducted into the College. In addition, Penn faculty are overrepresented among the recipients of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) Distinguished Educator awards and in 1998 the Department received the “AICP President’s Award for the contribution of thought, time, and effort given to its affairs and development.” Finally, in January the French government recognized Denise Scott Brown MCP ‘60 honoring her with its coveted “Chevalier” award. As we move into the next fifty years we are building on our grand traditions and there is an undeniable air of excitement in the Department. Our students, as I have written elsewhere, are extraordinarily qualified and very enthusiastic. The masters candidates, 117 strong, are literally devouring the curriculum! They seem to have unlimited energy for extra-curricular activities like field trips— they surveyed three New Jersey communities in Camden, Radburn, and Newark in a one-week period —and social life—they continue to populate “Happy Hour,” GSFA’s convivial end-of-week libation! Eight of our Ph.D. students presented papers at the ACSP, three funded by the Fannie Mae Foundation. By all accounts, they universally represented us very well, stimulating much discussion with their work that covered a range of topics from faith-based community organizations (yes, they are and will continue to work with Graduate Group member John Dilulio, the former Bush appointment to head the office of faith-based initiatives) to transportation modeling to urban design. As in the past, we have had wonderful visitors to the Department. Last Fall our first Annual Symposium on Large City Planning, moderated by Todd Bressi, editor of Places, featured discussion by three of the nation’s leading directors of planning; Maxine Griffith (Philadelphia), Con Howe (Los Angeles), and Andy Altman (Washington) served as a backdrop for our happy news, Dean Gary Hack has been appointed chair of the Philadelphia Planning Commission. Yet another Penn tradition, one of highlighting and supporting leadership, goes forward! We will be circulating the symposium proceedings on our web page and Planning magazine had a short piece on it in its December 2000 issue. This Fall, Elizabeth Blume (Cincinnati) and Michael Dobbins (Atlanta) will join Maxine and Todd for our second annual symposium on October 18. Last year, our other speakers showed how they are in the center of some of the world’s most interesting issues. Catherine Ross, Executive Director of the remarkable Georgia Regional Transportation Authority breezed in from Atlanta to outline her agency’s newly emerging agenda. Steve Putman and I, along with Richard Wesley, Chair of the Department of Architecture joined author Joseph Rykwert to discuss his wonderful new book The Seduction of Place, The City in the Twenty-First Century (Pantheon, 2000). Alexander Garvin, author of The American City What Works, What Doesn’t and Director of Planning, 2012 New York Olympics, presented a scintillating talk on the city’s recently submitted bid, outlining it as a gigantic planning problem. Professor of Practice, Jonathan Barnett, moderated a panel of Penn contributors to the recently published
Planning for a New Century: The Regional Agenda (Island Press, 2000). While Sir Peter Hall, Professor of Planning, The Bartlett School, University College, London and member of Britain’s Urban Task Force whose report, Towards an Urban Renaissance, has stimulated widespread discussion, came across the Atlantic to compare AngloAmerican approaches to smart growth, an event we co-sponsored with the Philadelphia chapter of the Urban Land Institute. On September 5, 2001, Jeremy Nowak, President of The Reinvestment Fund and chief strategist of Mayor John Street’s Neighborhood Transformation Initiative (NTI) updated us on NTI’s progress. Gary Hack and Roger Simmonds will preview their new book, Global Regional Cities, in November. Last Fall, John Keene welcomed six mayors to Penn’s second Mayors’ Institute on City Design (MICD). This one, co-sponsored by the National Endowment of the Arts and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, paves new ground by linking design issues to brownfields clean-up and development. This was the first national MICD on this subject. The participants included the mayors of Salt Lake City, Lawrence, Niagara Falls (home of Love Canal), Buffalo and Bridgeport. Finally, we launched our new course, Secret Seeds of Form, The Role of Rules and Limits in Design, taught by Richard Tustian, MCP ‘62 and M.Arch.’62, our contribution to reviving the GSFA tradition of sharing knowledge across department boundaries. It has drawn enrollment from every program distributed across all the disciplines. This promises to be a very special experience not only for the students, but also for the dozen instructors who are collaborating on this effort. So please enjoy this issue and share our collective pride in our Fifty Years of Excellence…Fifty Years of Tradition.
Genie
The Link is an alumnae newsletter published by students of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. The Link Department of City and Regional Planning University of Pennsylvania 127 Meyerson Hall Philadelphia, PA 19104-6311 (215) 898-8329 fax (215) 898-5731 e-mail: thelink@pobox.upenn.edu Co-Editors: Paul Christner Meghan Sinnott Kristin Szwajkowski Contributors: Tanya Washington Theresa Williamson
Donald A. Krueckeberg FAICP, MCP ‘62, PhD ‘66, Professor of Planning and Policy Development at Rutgers University in the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, has made major contributions to education and research in planning. His Urban Planning Analysis was the key textbook in this area for a generation. An Introduction to Planning History is in its eighth printing and his American Planner: Biographies and Recollections is the field’s only comprehensive collection on this topic. A former editor of the Journal of the American Institute of Planners and former president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, he was recently elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners. At Rutgers, he was a Department Chair, Director and then the first Acting Dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy that was founded under his administration. Since graduating from Penn, Krueckeberg has pursued varied interests. “Intellectually I’m on my third career,” he observes. “I started out in land use and location theory, with lots of Regional Science and methods, and wrote a text on planning methods with Arthur Silvers. I did a lot of work beginning in the mid1980s in planning history, publishing the two edited history books. Then I turned to my current interest in property rights, starting with an article “The Difficult Character of Property: To Whom Do Things Belong?” (1995) in the Journal of the American Planning Association, which won a National Planning Award.” Krueckeberg says that his best memories of Penn are of his classmates and professors, whom he considers really special people. Krueckeberg was attracted to Penn because he had read articles by members of the faculty as an undergraduate. Awarded a scholarship, he jokes: “I was a token Midwesterner from a state university with an undergraduate degree in planning (there were three of us). Life didn’t get much lower than that in the Ivy League. Penn and Philadelphia were my introduction to a truly class culture and it was a shock I’m still not over. The only comparable experience was my first visit to England.” His advice to current students is to be critical of everything and everyone. “You will spend the rest of you life confirming what you now know intuitively to be true. Trust yourself and where you come from, take bigger chances, and be a nice person even if they cannot spell your name [correctly].”
Elisabeth (Infield) Hamin, PhD ‘97, an assistant professor of Regional Planning in the Department of Landcape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Massachusetts, teaches land use planning and planning theory. Her research generally focuses on community-based land protection and regionalscale parks. Her forthcoming book entitled Mojave Voices: Interpretive Planning and the National Preserve will be published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Reflecting on Penn, Dr. Hamin has not been back to campus since her graduation, but she has followed news from the DCRP. She described the Department as being in a state of transition during her time there, but is enthusiastic about its recent resurgence. Her best memories were of the GSFA Happy Hours. They were “absolutely central to the social scene,” she said. Hamin feels that one of the major issues facing planners today is how to deal with people’s values while planning. Planners are realizing that they need to look at more than just the facts of a situation and it is often the values of people that shape which facts are important for planning. Her advice for current students is to “relax and enjoy your time [here].” Also she emphasizes gaining strength in communication and presentation skills. Writing, speaking and listening skills are all very important.
Nancy Goldenberg, MCP ‘80, was recently named Deputy Exceutive Director at the Center City District. Goldenberg had previously worked as Director of Public Information at the Center City District where she was involved in the “Make it a Night” project. In her current position as Deputy Executive Director, Goldenberg is overseeing planning and policy for the entire Center City District. Before returning to the Center City District, Goldenberg was the Program Administrator at the Fairmount Park Commission, managing a $26.6 million grant from the William Penn Foundation (the largest grant ever made to a municipal park), for a five year Natural Lands Restoration and Environmental Education Program. She directed the preparation of natural lands restoration master plans for seven watershed and estuary park areas, the design and construction of three new environmental education centers and the expansion of an existing one.
Waikeen Ng, MCP ‘99, Deputy Director, Fundacion Metropoli Proyecto-CITIES, Madrid, Spain. Created by visiting professor Alfonso Vegara. Proyecto-CITIES investigates the competitive advantages and factors of success of twenty cities around the world. Ultimately, the project will be the basis of the foundation’s Global Network of Excellence that will foster exchanges among innovative cities. The cities participating in the Proyecto include the Basque Country, Boston, Curitiba, Medellin, Miami, Philadelphia, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Toronto. Ng has responsibilities for coordinating the basic research already underway in the participating cities; establishing and maintaining contacts with invited cities and institutions; preparing the book of the research findings; and organizing the 2002 Bilbao Conference to will publicize the findings of Proyecto-CITIES.
Regarding his Penn experience, Mr. Ng says that since he already held a degree in architecture, the training in city planning broadened and complemented his existing skills. He chose Penn because of its location in a large metropolitan area and remembers the planning studio in Bogota, Colombia as a unique opportunity. Commenting on the planning profession in general, Ng cited Thomas Friedman’s recent book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, to illustrate that while the global world is still young and still evolving, it is increasingly inter-twined and interconnected. He believes that planners can best understand the global world by having a sense of the connectivity between different concepts, different countries and different communities. In this respect,. Ng says, “I think that the strength of the planning profession is in its diversity and ability to (and having to) operate, never in a vacuum, but instead with different inputs, forces and scales.” In his advice to students, Ng advises them to understand that it is increasingly essential to view the world with “multi-focal” lenses, where each “take” will be different, and will add to the “big picture.”
Deborah McColloch, MCP ‘79, Director, Office of Housing and Community Development (OHDC), City of Philadelphia, manages the city’s $100 million state and federal allocations for housing and community development. She is responsible for all funding applications, including the Consolidated Plan required by HUD. McColloch started at the OHCD directly after her graduation from Penn and became Deputy Director in 1993. She became Acting Director earlier this year and has just been named Director. During her time at OHCD, she has worked on several projects including the Settlement Grant Program that offers first-time homebuyers grants of $800 to assist with settlement costs, and the Homeownership Rehabilitation Plan that combines city subsidy with private financing to rehabilitate vacant structures. McColloch says that she has always been committed to public service and has never anticipated being any other area of planning. She sees herself remaining in public sector planning. McColloch stays well connected with Penn where she has taught courses on housing policy. One was a studio designed to create a professional experience by having students work with a client (a non-profit developer of affordable housing in the city) to develop a housing proposal complete with site plans and pro-formas. Through this experience, McColloch sees the value for students to be able to interact with practicing professionals. McColloch came to Penn because of its strength in housing and community development and its location in Philadelphia. She also valued taking courses in other parts of the university. But most memorable, she observes, were the people. McColloch says she made life long friends in the program. One of her best recollections was the rewriting of Christmas carols with a planning theme. Her favorite, sung to the tune of “O Tannenbaum,” was “O Mandelbaum”: O Mandelbaum,O Mandelbaum, for you we have a query. O Mandelbaum,O Mandelbaum, oh, what is planning theory? From John Rawls to Faludi, we’ve read and done our duty. But Mandelbaum, O Mandelbaum, oh, what is planning theory? McColloch feels that there are two major sets of issues facing future planners – those dealing with growth and those dealing with decline. In Philadelphia she deals with a declining population and issues of vacancy and open space. This contrasts with areas such as Florida where planners are dealing with growing populations.
Local Planning News
Mayor John Street announced the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative on April 19, 2001. The initiative is pending approval of City Council. To view the complete NTI proposal, go to the City of Philadelphia’s web site: http://www.phila.gov. NTI Highlights: Five-Year Plan Total cost $1.63 Billion Demolition of 14,000 building Rehabilitate 2500 houses Clean 31,000 lots Construct 16,000 homes Reduce vacancy by 65 percent Beautify sidewalks Restructure housing agencies Stimulate commercial and industrial development Create land bank Funding: $490 million from related city program $890 million from housing agencies $250 million from new city bond The bond will finance encapsulations, land assembly, sidewalk beatification, commercial/industrial development, and property inventory.
Census Update Philadelphia’s population in 2000 was reported as 1,517,550. In 1990 the population was reported as 1,585,577.
Delaware Waterfront Redevelopment The Philadelphia Planning Commission has initiated a Comprehensive Redevelopment Plan for the North Delaware Riverfront. The plan covers and 10 miles along the Delaware River from Penn Treaty Park in south to Poquessing Creek in the north. The planning process is scheduled for completion in September 2001. The plan will look at areas along the waterfront for new mixed-use communities, a riverfront park and trail, and new housing and open space development.
GSFA hosted a Future Cities conference focusing on large-scale urban development on March 23-24, 2001.
Nationally and internationally renowned planners, landscape architects, and architects presented large-scale projects and the conference ended with placing the possibilities presented in the context of Philadelphia and the waterfront redevelopment. For more information on the Delaware Riverfront Plan, go to the Planning Commission’s web site at http://www.philaplanning.org.
DCRP Welcomes Visiting Professors
The department is hosting three distinguished colleagues for this year. Fulbright Fellow and Queens University Professor David LA Gordon will be offering Public / Private Partnerships next Spring. While at Penn he will be using the Kroiz Archives to work on the biography of Paul Cret. Phillipos Loukissas Professor of Planning and Regional Development at the University of Thessaly is co-teaching the Advanced Transportation Seminar with Professor Tomazinis, while Andrew Seidel, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M and editor of the Journal of Architectural Education and Research is partnering with Gary Hack to teach Site Planning.
Dissertation focuses on bridging the digital divide: Catalytic Communities, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Taking an unconventional route down the Ph.D. track at Penn, Theresa Williamson (doctoral student in City and Regional Planning) has decided, with the support of her advisors, to simultaneously develop her dissertation and establish a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Rio de Janeiro. This decision came after a two-month preliminary research period in the summer of 2000, when an idea she had been developing for several years evolved rapidly based on her experiences and personal contacts in Rio’s favelas. Urban life in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is very different from anything experienced in the United States. Favelas (shantytowns) rise up the hillsides alongside elite apartment buildings. Nowhere do rich and poor live so close together as to interact and witness each other’s worlds more than Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s 170 million people face the most uneven income distribution in the world. Fifty percent of the population barely earns $900 each month and half of one percent of the population earns more than $18,000 per month. With the arrival of the digital age, Brazil is no different from the United States, or other nations, that worry about the coming digital divide. However, perhaps because of the extreme difference between rich and poor, there has been a greater public emphasis on flattening the income inequality curve in Brazil than in other countries. Because the physical proximity between rich and poor is particularly evident in Rio, this effort has been particularly greater there, with a diverse set of organizations devoted to various measures of narrowing the divide. These measures include wiring Rio’s favelas for information technology. Approximately 120 out of Rio’s 600 favelas already have information technology (IT) centers, half of them with Internet access. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the city government established these centers. Though use of these resources is still limited, and many favelados (favela-dwellers) remain without access, Rio de Janeiro’s IT accessibility rate among the poor is enviable, compared to standards in most developing countries. The emerging not-for-profit, Catalytic Communities, has at its core the development of an international database of innovative grassroots solutions to community problems to serve as a resource for lowerincome communities and to help foster dialogue among and between communities. Catalytic Communities’ ultimate goal is to extend this database city-by-city so that solutions can be effectively shared worldwide. Rio de Janeiro makes a logical pilot city – it boasts a good start at building up Internet resources among the poor, a multitude of innovation at the community level, diversity of local context that can provide useful insights for people in diverse locations, and the presence of 600 relatively isolated favelas in terms of their previous information-sharing. Theresa’s dissertation will involve documenting and analyzing the evaluation process by which Catalytic Communities tailors its Internetbased activities and resources for lower income communities, and the results of this process. Internet resources to date have been tailored to high-income, highly-educated individuals. Ideally, the results of the dissertation would provide useful information and tools for others developing online planning tools targeted to low-income groups. Please contact Theresa for more information at twilliam@dolphin.upenn.edu or visit Catalytic Communities’ website and send in your feedback at www.catcomm.org.
Check it out!
Take a look at the new City Planning web site: http://www.upenn.edu/gsfa/ city_plan/index.htm for Faculty, Student, and Alumni profiles, summaries of past lectures, schedules for upcoming lectures, and student work.
Just Announced… Ardmore Workshop Group wins PPA Award for best plan!
Fall Lecture Series Second Annual Symposium on Large City Planning Elizabeth Blume (Cincinnati) Michael Dobbins (Atlanta) Maxine Griffith (Philadelphia) Moderated by Todd Bressi October 18, 2001 Meyerson Hall B-1 6 PM Reception to follow “Global Regional Cities” Gary Hack Roger Simmonds November 5, 2001 Meyerson Hall (Room TBA) 6 PM Reception to follow Department of City and Regional Planning Award Distinguished academic achievement Stacy Sanseverino, 2001 Ryan Furgerson, 2001 Welcome! Class of 2003 Faculty News In June, Jonathan Barnett, Gary Hack and Genie Birch presented portions of their work from The New Metropolitan Agenda (Island Press, 2000) at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. Jonathan Barnett, Genie Birch and Paul Levy will also be featured in an Urban Land Institute Fellows panel focusing on new publications at the ULI annual meeting in Boston in October. In July, Sidney Wong announced a new information resource providing information sharing, community building, and economic development for West Philadelphia: InfoR. Go to http://westphillydata.upenn.edu On a sadder note, Ian L. McHarg, Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture passed away this spring. Professor McHarg was the founding chair of the Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning Department at Penn. He was recognized as a planning pioneer by the American Institute of Planners in 1997 when he was awarded the AICP Pioneer Award. Professor McHarg also received the Japan Prize in city planning from the Science and Technology Foundation of Japan in 2000. He will be remembered fondly by all who knew him.
2001 Student Awards
William L.C. Wheaton Award
Outstanding academic performance by first year City Planning Student
Cara Griffin, 2002
Brent Krasner, 2002
Lewis Mumford Award
Outstanding work in studies on urbanization Kirsten McGregor, 2001
Robert B. Mitchell Award
Outstanding work in professional practice studies
Christina Alexiou, 2001
Matthew Jakubowski, 2001
Paul Davidoff Award
Outstanding work in areas of contemporary social concern
Jennifer Greenberg, 2001
Erwin Gutkind Award
Outstanding work in international planning studies
Eser Devrim Ozdemir, 2001
The Gaia Award
Outstanding work in environmental planning
Christopher Cahill, 2001
The Pennsylvania Planning Association Outstanding Planning Student Scholarship Award
Outstanding second year planning student
Christopher Cahill, 2001
Melissa Saunders, 2001
Ann Louise Strong Leadership Award Demonstrated leadership among his/her peers in public affairs
Carolyn Blackwell, 2001
Christopher Cahill, 2001
Jenny Greenberg, 2001
Jennifer Leonard, 2001
Tony Smith, 2001
Martin Meyerson Award
Public service in the profession
Joseph Curtis, 2001
Albert and Edith Pezzotta Award
Outstanding work in Infrastructure Studies
David Averill, 2002
Ciaron Walker, 2002
Wallace, Roberts, and Todd Award
Distinguished work by a first year student
Robert Lamb, 2002
Walt D’Alessio Award
Awarded for best student papers on real estate
Jennifer Rodriguez, 2001
Brian West, 2001
Department of City and Regional Planning Award
Distinguished academic achievement
Stacy Sanseverino, 2001
Ryan Furgerson, 2001
Welcome! Class of 2003
The Class of 2003 promises to be just as enthusiastic as previous classes in recent years. This is the largest class ever, 63 students, which has entered the department. These students, 31 women and 32 men, come from diverse backgrounds and a wide range of professional experience. Overall, sixty-eight percent have work experience in a planning related field before coming to Penn to pursuing the MCP degree. Seventeen percent of the class graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 2001, forty-one percent are between 22-25 years old, thirty-eight percent are 26-30, and five percent are 30+. The majority of students also received academic and merit awards as undergraduates. About half of the students have served as volunteers in a wide variety of organizations. Most of the students have travelled extensively and quite a few are bilingual. Nine international students are coming to Penn from Japan, India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Canada, China, and the Bahamas. Several students are pursuing joint MCP degrees with law (Ken Johnson), social work (Brian Armistead and Erin Wilson), and historic preservation (Jennifer Hirsch). These students join second-year joint degree MCP/MARCH students Lakisha Hull and Rob Lamb in their academic pursuits. This year’s HUD fellows are Brian Armistead, Christopher Johnson, and Ken Johnson. Three students are being sent to Penn by their employers: Jim Goetschius (US Army), Patricia Workman (SEPTA), and Carmen Zappile (Army Corps of Engineers). Congratulations and Good Luck!
Students Explore Old and New Planning Efforts in Camden
By Tanya Washington (MCP 2002)
Last fall, about a dozen planning students caught the RiverLink Ferry from Penn’s Landing to Camden, NJ. They visited with two organizations working on local revitalization efforts and also took a tour of a World War I-era, federally built planned community. Jenny Greenberg (MCP 2001), who lives in Camden, led the trip. The Cooper’s Ferry Development Association (CFDA), a private, non-profit organization that has been redeveloping 150 acres along Camden’s waterfront since 1984, gave a presentation to the group. CFDA was created by Campbell Soup and RCA, at the time two major waterfront property owners, along with the City of Camden. CFDA created a twenty five-year master plan for the Camden waterfront to reposition the waterfront as a destination point for entertainment and recreation and to expand Camden’s tax base by creating a new economic center. Since 1992, CFDA has completed several major projects: the New Jersey State Aquarium, now the fourth mostvisited destination in the Philadelphia region; the River-Link Ferry; a high-tech office campus that adapted old RCA buildings; the Sony Blockbuster E-Centre; One Port Center, designed by Michael Graves and now the headquarters of the Delaware Port Authority; and the recently-opened Camden Children’s Garden, next to the Aquarium. Several major new developments are in the planning stages, including the Aerial Tram, planned for Spring 2003. Funded by the Delaware River Port Authority, it will span the Delaware River at the height of the Ben Franklin Bridge. The new Camden Family Entertainment Center will be the terminal of the tram. The Camden Baseball Stadium, owned by Rutgers University, had its grand opening this spring. The stadium is the new home of the minor-league Camden River Sharks and can hold 400,000 visitors. The fields will be available for public use during the summer. The SS New Jersey, the largest battleship ever built, will have a new home on the waterfront at the Battleship New Jersey Visitor’s Plaza and Museum. Phase I, the Visitor’s Plaza, is scheduled to open on Labor Day 2001. Additional projects planned are an aquarium expansion, the conversion of the old RCA Nipper building to residential use by Philadelphia developer Carl Dranoff, and a hotel and conference center. CFDA recently expanded its focus from the waterfront to Camden’s downtown and the nearby Cooper Grant neighborhood, where the organization wants to implement its Interior Gateway Project. CFDA was concerned about the state of the deteriorating downtown corridor that leads to the waterfront. CFDA is currently raising funds to implement significant streetscape and signage improvements and to help fund a light rail extension from Trenton to the Sony E-Centre in Camden. Downtown park restoration and some building demolition are other elements of the project. The group also visited the St. Joseph’s Carpenter Society in East Camden. Established in 1984 by a local Catholic church as a non-profit service provider for parishioners, the Society now concentrates Students Explore Old and New Planning Efforts in Camden By Tanya Washington (MCP 2002) on redeveloping vacant houses and selling them to local residents. In East Camden, 1 in 30 houses is vacant. The Society has responded by investing $20 million since 1993 in East Camden’s housing. The organization also provides home maintenance and financial management classes for its clients. The trip ended with a walking tour of the community of Fairview in South Camden, led by Professor Michael Lang, Chair of the Urban Studies Program at Rutgers’ Camden campus. The neighborhood, formerly known as Yorkship Garden Village, was built in 1918 on 225 acres by the U.S. Shipping Boards’ Emergency Fleet Corporation to house shipbuilding workers. Yorkship Village’s design was based on the garden city model. The neighborhood’s focal point is the village green, surrounded by a concentric road. Along this main road two apartment buildings, a hotel, retail and commercial structures were built. Curvilinear radial roads extend out to houses of various styles and setbacks. Green spaces also were provided throughout the neighborhood. The neighborhood is easily walkable, and the narrow, curving roads discourage heavy and fast-moving traffic. Unfortunately, the neighborhood is currently experiencing pockets of decline. The apartment buildings are vacant and up for sale. Some of the smaller green spaces now have garages or house extensions on them, and some houses display signs of neglect. Nonetheless, the overall design of the community has been preserved and still exudes a quiet sense of place.
2001 APA ConferenceNew Orleans
Gary Hack, Genie Birch, Martin Meyerson, Tony Tomazinis, Dick Tustian, Jim Kise, Todd Bressi and six MCP students attended the 2001 APA Conference in New Orleans. Congratulations to College of Fellows, American Institute of Certified Planners new inductees: Martin Meyerson and Tony Tomazinis The 50th Anniversary Cocktail Party was attended by over 30 alumni. Gary Hack updated alums on GSFA events and accomplishments. Genie Birch presented the accomplishments of CPLN faculty and students. Jim Kise made a presentation as the new president of Alumni Association encouraging alumni giving.
Congratulations to the Class of 2001!
Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, who was awarded an honorary degree at the ceremony, gave the convocation address and Philadelphia Mayor, John Street, delivered the GSFA commencement speech.
In the Fiftieth Anniversary year of the department, forty-eight students received a degree in City and Regional Planning at Penn. Fortyseven students were awarded a MCP degree and one student received a PhD. One student received a certificate.
New Information Resource for West Philadelphia Information Resources, West Philadelphia (InfoR) was launched in July 2001 to help facilitate an advanced information infrastructure for community-based projects, housing studies, and policy research. The project is directed by Assistant Professor Sidney Wong of City & Regional Planning. For more information about the project and to access the InfoR data, go to: http://westphillydata.upenn.edu
