The following piece is part of Progressive City’s “Contesting the University as Planner, Occupier, and Developer” series, which asks authors to examine the role of academic institutions in (re)shaping cities and how planning practitioners, activists, educators, students, or other actors can contest their harmful impacts both from within and outside these institutions.

Continue Reading From West Harlem to Manhattanville: Columbia University as Planner, Occupier, and Developer

How do planners move beyond bystanding? What does it mean to do rapid response research? We are witness in these times to the ways in which localities, particularly cities, can either contest or comply with unjust laws and policies. How can we as planners resist?

Continue Reading Tracking the Trackers: ICE Detention Counter-Mapping Project

Universities play a critical and often contradictory role in planning.  They not only bestow accreditation and confer degrees, but also shape the discourses and practices that define the field. These in turn influence the design, use, and accessibility of our cities. Although university planning programs make claims of educating practitioners who will work towards more equity, participation, and justice, recent events remind us that despite these overtures, the university remains a key institution in reproducing a racial-capitalist, patriarchal, and colonial status quo in our cities.

Continue Reading Call for Submissions: Contesting the University as Planner, Occupier, and Developer