A few years ago I was invited to participate in a unique global academic collaboration among urban planning educators in several countries, including the U.K., Spain, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Norway, Belgium, Greece and Turkey. Our fearless leader, Abbas Ziafati Bafarasat from the U.K.’s Oxford Brookes University, was originally planning a single article. As sometimes […]
New Paper Demonstrates Value of Human Zoning Data
Together with my University of Michigan colleague Sarah Mills, a few years ago I was involved in the pilot project to launch what has become the Michigan Zoning Map, an effort to create systematic variables describing the zoning districts in communities in our state. Drawing on the methodology created by the pioneering National Zoning Atlas, […]
New Book on Urban Data Science, Analytics, and Technology
It is my pleasure to announce the publication of the new book, Digital-Era Urban Transformations: Advancements in Data Science, Analytics, and Technology. This edited volume was published in conjunction with the 2025 Computational Urban Planning and Urban Management (CUPUM) conference, held in July in London. Much more than simply a conference proceedings, a rigorous double-blind […]
New Paper Explores Urban Change in Metro Detroit
What’s the relationship between sprawling urban form, urban forest cover, and racial diversity? Can communities maintain racial diversity, or both grow denser and greener, in a broader context of regional sprawl? Surprisingly, there are few studies on these questions, since most urban sprawl research lacks fine-grain data about urban forests, which requires complex remote sensing […]
Come Discover Washtenaw County’s Hidden Histories
Some of you know I have been involved in Justice InDeed, an amazing project to map racial covenants in Washtenaw County — the county that contains Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. After an epic, 5-year research project involving extensive engagement, over 1,000 volunteers, and countless meetings and events, we have uncovered more than 9,000 racially restrictive […]
Mobility & Zoning Research Reports Published
Last fall I concluded two significant collaborative research projects:
New Book on Advanced Urban Analytics
Next week I’ll be in Montreal for the 18th International Conference on Computational Urban Planning and Urban Management (CUPUM). I have been involved in this biennial global conference since attending the 2013 conference, held at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Each event connects a unique global community of researchers who work on the intersection of […]