Columbia University

Columbia University’s Urban Planning Program undertook several new academic, extra-curricular and scholarly initiatives in the first quarter of 2000.  In January, two studio projects were started by first year graduate students, included a design and historic preservation initiative in the Montserrat neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina and a comprehensive analysis of the New York City Housing Survey, with a focus on the NYC housing planning process.  Second year students have been involved in unique consulting projects and a web-based international planners exchange initiative, called Trading Places. Under the leadership of Sze Lei Leong, a GIS specialist, two students provided CIVITAS, an active local non-profit organization, an analysis of the new New York City Bulk Zoning resolution. The project, presented on March 21, served as one of the first independent reviews of the new proposal for many local organizations concerned with built environment issues.  Trading Places, a place where European and American planning students can share ideas in virtual and real space, is planning an exchange program from August 1-13 in Europe, and from August 19-31 in the US.  (More information on the Columbia sponsored Trading Places can be obtained at www.planningnetwork.org/tradingplaces)

Several of the faculty have recently completed research and have new publications.  Professor Peter Marcuse’s and Ron van Kempen of the Utrecht University recently released, Globalizing Cities - A New Spatial Order? in which they examine whether the process of  globalization is creating a new spatial order in cities of varying sizes. Professor Elliott Sclar’s book, You Don’t Always Get What You Pay For: The Economics of Privatization,  came out in, and critically analyzes the trend toward privatization of services.

Earlier in the academic year, the Urban Planning Program welcomed a new Assistant Director, Ms. Ana Puszkin-Chevlin and, Assistant Professor Lance Freeman.  Freeman recently received a grant from the Fannie Mae Foundation to study the impact of Assisted Housing on concentrated poverty.  The research project will examine how the presence of assisted housing in a neighborhoods effects migration into and out of that neighborhood.

Urbanism and Public Health

The Graduate Programs in Urban Planning continues to grow through increased collaboration with other university academic programs and a willingness to step into the center of controversial and cutting edge urban problems.  The Planning program in cooperation with Columbia University's School of Public Health has established a University Seminar entitled, "Urbanism & Public Health".  The seminars, which will meet five times per year, will host speakers and discussion of varied topics ranging from environmental epidimeology to the historic role of public baths. Nominations to the Seminar are made across disciplines and include planners, historians, medical doctors and public health professionals from Columbia University and neighboring academic institutions.

Studio Projects

The Urban Planning program is currently engaged in three cutting‑edge studio projects.  The Manhattan studio has taken up the land‑use planning of Manhattan's Westside as it pertains to the possibility of constructing a stadium to accommodate future Olympics.  The regional New Rochelle Studio will focus on a contentious urban renewal project in which a mixed industrial and low‑income residential neighborhood would be raised to develop big box retail. The project, involving IKEA as the designated the urban renewal sponsor, has receive national press.  Columbia's involvement in this project seeks to empower the local community with an alternative site plan for the 14‑acre area that will balance the needs of numerous stakeholders with the municipal fiscal needs of the City.  The studio hopes to offer an objective analysis, which could be valuable to better assessing the proposed project.  The Program's third studio is traveling to Venezuela at the end of January 2001 to study and develop a Disaster‑Resistant Plan for Caracas.  This project is the first collaborative studio between the Urban Planning Program, the Urban Design Program and the scientists of the Lamont Doherty Earth and Science Observatory.  The project was specially funded by the University Provost's Office and seems of immediate relevancy in light of the recent events in El Salvador. We believe this is the first natural hazards related studio to be done in a planning program and hope it will serve as a model for hazards planning.