Trained in planning and architecture, Ann Forsyth is a professor of urban planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. From 2007-2012 she was a professor of city and regional planning at Cornell. She taught previously at at the University of Minnesota, directing the Metropolitan Design Center (2002-2007), Harvard (1999-2002), and the University of Massachusetts (1993-1999) where she was co-director of a small community design center, the Urban Places Project. She has held short-term positions at Columbia, Macquarie, and Sydney Universities. Ann Forsyth’s work focuses on the social aspects of physical planning and urban development. The big question behind her research and practice is how to make cities more sustainable and healthy. Forsyth’s contributions have been to analyze the success of planned alternatives to sprawl, particularly exploring the tensions between social and ecological values in urban design. Several issues prove to be the most difficult to deal with in planning better places and provide a focus for some of her more detailed investigations: suburban design more generally (sense of place, overall layout) and other aspects of healthy places (walkability, social diversity, housing, green space, food). Forsyth received her B.Sc. in Architecture from the University of Sydney, an M.A. in Urban Planning from UCLA, and a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from Cornell.
The Current Turmoil and Planning Education
It is undeniably a challenging time in higher education and an object lesson in the power of uncertainty. However, a planning education is all the more needed in times of turmoil.
Applying to Graduate School in Planning: A Second Update
In 2008 and 2018, I wrote some much-read blogs about how to get into planning school. As deadlines near, I revisit that advice. I look first at the big picture of the case you need to make for the admissions committee and then the logistics.
Planning Your Planning Degree
In the Northern Hemisphere, many students are starting urban planning degree programs. How can students position themselves for a productive and meaningful education in planning.
Planning Your Planning Career: A Process not a Blueprint
As planning students and recent graduates consider internships and first jobs, they often ask how much these initial decisions matter. A conversation with Professor Robert Freestone unpacks the twists and turns of planning careers.
Getting Into Grad School in Planning
Ten years ago I wrote "Graduate School 2008: Nuts and Bolts of Applying". As deadlines draw near for this year’s round of applications it is a good time to revisit and update this advice.