National Planning Pioneers
The Planning Pioneer Awards are presented to pioneers of the profession who have made personal and direct innovations in American planning that have significantly and positively redirected planning practice, education, or theory with long-term results.
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
A
Charles Abrams
As an international housing consultant, Charles Abrams had a major impact on housing policy after World War II. He was a longtime adviser to the United Nations and, in the 1950s, he chaired the New York State Commission Against Discrimination. In the mid-1960s, he headed a task force that recommended consolidating New York's housing activities, a proposal that led to the creation of the New York City Housing and Development Administration. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1993.
Frederick J. Adams
Frederick J. Adams (1901–1980) founded the city and regional planning department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1932. Adams insisted that the planning program should be interdisciplinary while also making sure that the field maintained its own identity. His students helped to create university planning programs at the University of California at Berkeley, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Ohio State University, and Pennsylvania State University at State College. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1996.
Thomas Adams
British-born planner Thomas Adams supervised work on the 1929 Regional Plan of New York and Environs. Adams was a prolific designer of low-density residential developments that were commonly referred to as "garden suburbs." Upon returning to Great Britain, he served as one of the early presidents of the Institute of Landscape Architects, which became the Landscape Institute. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1989.
Sherry Arnstein
Sherry Arnstein became a household name among planners in 1969 when she published her ground-breaking article "A Ladder of Citizen Participation" about the hierarchy of public involvement. The Journal of the American Planning Association article has been reprinted 80 times and translated into Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, French, and German. Arnstein's work influenced how planners and communities go about engaging the public in the planning and decision-making process, provided the theoretical framework for advocacy planning, and organized planners' understanding of meaning public participation as a way for citizens to be equal partners in shaping programs and plans. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 2005.
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Edmund N. Bacon
Edmund N. Bacon, Philadelphia's planning director from 1949 to 1970, is honored for bringing national attention to the rebuilding of the American city in the post-World War II era. In Design of Cities, Bacon explains his philosophy of design, derived in part from his study of great urban design achievements of the past, and shows how it applies to the revived design of mid-20 century Central City Philadelphia. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1993.
Frederick H. Bair, Jr.
Much of today's planning theory and practice is based on the writings and experience of Frederick H. Bair Jr., author of The Text of a Model Zoning Ordinance. He also refined the land-use intensity system, which he first adapted to Norfolk, Virginia. Besides writing three editions of Model Zoning, he wrote commentaries for Land Use Law & Zoning Digest, was a founder of the Florida Planning and Zoning Association (1950), and practiced professionally, first with the Florida Development Commission and then as an independent consultant at his own firm, Bair & Abernathy. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 2006.
Harland Bartholomew
Harland Bartholomew was the first planner ever to be put on staff by an American city. It was Newark, New Jersey, that hired Bartholomew to work on a comprehensive plan in 1914, a year after he started his planning career. Soon after, he started his own firm, Harland Bartholomew & Associates, in St. Louis, where he initiated the idea of placing a resident planner in a community to implement the plan. His 1932 book, Urban Land Uses, is considered a classic in quantitative analysis. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1988.
Edward Murray Bassett
Edward Murray Bassett (1863–1948) chaired the commission that produced New York City's landmark 1916 zoning code plan. Bassett had a long-time career as a lawyer, one-term congressman, and participant in a wide array of civic boards and commissions, including the National Conference on City Planning, a forerunner of the American Planning Association. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1992.
Catherine (Wurster) Bauer
Today's debates about public housing have a familiar ring to those who know the work of Catherine Bauer, who described many of the problems in her 1934 book, Modern Housing. Bauer's views had a strong influence on the housing legislation of the New Deal, but in the 1950s she became an equally articulate advocate for long-range planning to guide metropolitan growth. In a 1951 essay titled "Social Questions in Housing and Community Planning," she laid the foundation for what would later be called social planning. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1988.
Edward H. Bennett
Born in Wiltshire, England, Edward H. Bennett worked with architect Daniel H. Burnham on the 1909 Plan of Chicago. In the plan, Burnham and Bennett created a document that gave essence to the City Beautiful planning philosophy. He also served on the Chicago Plan Commission into the 1930s. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1989.
Alfred Bettman
Alfred Bettman was a Cincinnati lawyer who drafted the bill, passed by the Ohio legislature in 1915, that enabled the creation of local planning commissions in the state. He played a key role in establishing the constitutionality of zoning in the 1926 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving the City of Euclid, Ohio, and Ambler Realty Company. He died in 1945. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1991.
Walter H. Blucher
Walter H. Blucher (1901–1989) was the planning director of Detroit from 1925 to 1935 and the executive director of the American Society of Planning Officials (one of the predecessor organizations of the American Planning Association) from 1934 to 1953. Under his direction, ASPO organized training sessions and a job placement service, and created the Planning Advisory Service. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1996.
Ernest J. Bohn
Ernest J. Bohn was a Cleveland city council member who, in the mid-1930s, founded what is now the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, and created the nation's first metropolitan housing authority. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1991.
Daniel H. Burnham
Architect Daniel H. Burnham (1846–1912) is renowned for the influential 1909 Plan for Chicago, the first metropolitan-regional plan in the country. His architectural firm, Burnham and Root, planned the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition — also influential because its classical style architecture inspired legions of city halls, public libraries, and banks throughout the country. One of Burnham's last projects was the People's Gas Building in Chicago, home to the American Planning Association from 1995 to 2010. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1989.
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F. Stuart Chapin, Jr.
F. Stuart Chapin, Jr., is professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina, where he taught from 1949 to 1978. He is known for applying social science methods to the study of urban growth, systematizing the study of activity patterns, and emphasizing citizen participation in the planning process. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1993.
Charles H. Cheney
California planner Charles H. Cheney (1884–1943) was a founding member of the American City Planning Institute in 1917. He is credited with helping win passage of the state's first planning law in 1915 and with developing such regulatory instruments as protective covenants, architectural controls, and homeowner associations. Cheney organized the first California Conference on City Planning, held in Monterey, California, in October 1914. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1993.
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Paul Davidoff
Paul Davidoff (1930–1984) founded the Suburban Action Institute in 1969. The institute repeatedly challenged exclusionary zoning in the courts, winning a notable success in the case involving the town of Mt. Laurel, New Jersey. That decision led to the New Jersey State Supreme Court requirement that communities must supply their "regional fair share" of low-income housing needs. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1996.
Frederic Adrian Delano
Frederic Adrian Delano was president of the American Planning and Civic Association from 1925 to 1937, promoting city, state, and national planning. In 1927, he became chairman of the Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs, the most extensive data-based regional planning effort undertaken in the country at that time. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1989.
Earle S. Draper
A transplanted New Englander, Earle S. Draper began his career in the South, working as a landscape architect for renowned planning consultant John Nolen. Striking out on his own in 1917, Draper became known for this plans for textile mill towns, including Johnson & Johnson's model community of Chicopee, Georgia. In 1933, Draper became the first director of land planning and housing for the Tennessee Valley Authority. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1987.
E
Simon Eisner
Simon Eisner is a Californian who has been active in planning since the late 1930s. He co-authored the 1943 Los Angeles Plan for Freeways; introduced comprehensive planning to numerous local governments as a consultant; founded the planning curriculum at the University of Southern California; and co-authored The Urban Pattern (fifth edition, 1986) with Arthur Gallion. Designed a National Planning Pioneer in 1991.
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Carl Feiss
Carl Feiss served as director of Columbia University's housing and planning division during the 1930s. In 1938, he earned one of the first master's degrees in city planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1944, he left New York City to become the planning director of Denver, Colorado, and to establish the urban planning department at the University of Denver. Later, as a consultant, Feiss campaigned for passage of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, which authorized the establishment of a national registry of historic places. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1998.
George Burdett Ford
In 1913, George Burdett Ford (1879–1930) joined with engineer Ernest Pl. Goodrich to create the Technical Advisory Corporation of New York, the nation's first private planning consulting firm. Ford went on to produce the New York City code of 1916, the first comprehensive zoning ordinance in the country. During the 1920s, he was an urban planning and zoning consultant to more than 90 U.S. cities and towns. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1997.
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Paul Goodman and Percival Goodman
Brothers Paul Goodman (1911–72) and architect Percival Goodman (1904–89) contributed significantly to planning theory and literature. Their 1947 book, Communitas, was a class study of urban design and the "art of building cities." The Double E, published in 1977 by Percival Goodman, explores the relationship between ecology and economics. Designated National Planning Pioneers in 1994.
Aelred J. Gray
Aelred J. Gray, who started as a planner for the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1935, directed the community planning assistance program and later developed the floodway regulation concepts that led to the National Flood Insurance Program. He led the effort to establish a graduate planning school at the University of Tennessee. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1991.
Frederick Gutheim
Frederick Gutheim (1908–1993) was the co-author of the 1976 master plan for the U.S. Capitol and creator of the historic preservation program at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1991.
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Irving Hand, FAICP
Professor Irving Hand, FAICP, has had a significant national impact on the planning profession, especially on developing a regional planning approach. He provided oversight for the creation of Pennsylvania's first Appalachian Development Plan. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 2014.
Sid J. Hare and S. Herbert Hare
Sid J. Hare (1860–1938) and S. Herbert Hare (1888–1960) were farther-and-son partners in the Kansas City landscape architecture and planning firm of Hare and Hare. Among the firm's projects during a half-century of practice were various subdivisions in the Country Club Plaza District in Kansas City and the new town of Longview, Washington, designed for the Long-Bell Lumber Company in 1922. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1992.
Elizabeth Herlihy
Elizabeth Herlihy (1880–1953) was the first woman member of the American City Planning Institute. She was a veteran staffer at the Boston City Planning Commission and chairperson of the Massachusetts Planning Board. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1990.
John Tasker Howard
John Tasker Howard (1911–1995) was planning director of Cleveland, Ohio, and a professor of city and regional planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his alma mater. Howard served as president of the Ohio Planning Conference, on the board of the American Society of Planning Officials, and as president of the American Institute of Planners. In 1960, he became the first president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, helping to guide academic planning programs during a period of rapid expansion. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1998.
Henry Vincent Hubbard
Henry Vincent Hubbard was the first chairman of the first university planning program at Harvard University, and Theodora Kimball Hubbard was the author of the first comprehensive bibliography on planning. Designated National Planning Pioneers in 1989.
Theodora Kimball Hubbard
Henry Vincent Hubbard was the first chairman of the first university planning program at Harvard University, and Theodora Kimball Hubbard was the author of the first comprehensive bibliography on planning. Designated National Planning Pioneers in 1989.
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Harlean James
Harlean James (1877–1969) was a longtime secretary of the American Civic and Planning Association. In 1952 she was awarded the Pugsley Gold Medal "for constantly and effectively espousing the cause of parks at all levels of government, but particularly at the state and national levels through articles, editorials, speeches, correspondence and testimony given before Congressional Committees." Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1990.
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T.J. Kent, Jr.
T.J. Kent, Jr., was the first chairman of the first graduate planning program on the West Coast at the University of California at Berkeley. He also authored The Urban General Plan (1964). Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1990.
George Edward Kessler
George Edward Kessler (1862–1923) designed the Kansas City, Missouri Park System and site of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. He was a founding member of the American Institute of Planners and a member of the National Council of Fine Arts. During his career, he produced plans for dozens of communities, park and boulevard systems, schools, and private estates. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1990.
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Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Known for his 1792 plan of Washington, D.C., whose radial streets and grand vistas influenced generations of American planners, Parisian born Pierre Charles L'Enfant was made a major in the Continental Army in 1778 and was later charged with creating a plan for locating public buildings in the new capital city on the Potomac River. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1992.
Kevin Lynch
Kevin Lynch was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his alma mater. His most famous work, Image of the City, published in 1960, was the result of a five-year study on how people perceive and organize spatial information as they navigate through cities. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1990.
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Benton MacKaye
Conservationist and forester Benton MacKaye is most well known for having conceptualized and later having helped create the Appalachian Trail. He studied at Harvard University and went on to publish The New Exploration in 1928. The book was the first to apply the principles of Patrick Geddes of Scotland, the father of regional planning, to regional development in the United States. MacKaye's efforts in the 1920s created the foundations for the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Rural Resettlement Program. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1999.
Albert Mayer
Albert Mayer made outstanding contributions to new town development in the United States during the 1930s and had exceptional foresight, demonstrated by his prediction in 1938 that uncontrolled suburban growth would strain transportation and erode the countryside. In 1946, he initiated direct citizen participation in planning, decades ahead of the rest of the country. Mayer used his 1967 book, The Urgent Future, to expose the abuse of statistics in planning to justify the continuation of what has always been. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 2000.
Margarita Piel McCoy, FAICP
An early advocate for planning, Margarita Piel McCoy, FAICP (1923–2016) brought a strong female voice to the profession at a time when men dominated the field. She became the first woman appointed to a full professorship of urban planning at a major university, and the first woman to chair a planning department in the U.S. Even after her teaching career ended, McCoy remained involved in the planning profession, working in private practice advising communities on comprehensive plans and advocating for changes in the planning process so that citizens and community groups had greater input. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 2018.
Ian Lennox McHarg
Ian Lennox McHarg (1920–2001), a Scottish-born landscape architect, changed the face of the planning profession through his ecological principles and approach to plans and design. In 1954, McHarg joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania where he pushed for the creation of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning. He is renowned for his advocacy of ecological planning and for the layered mapping techniques that created the foundation for today's geographic information systems. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1997.
Mary Means
An award-winning community planner and innovator, Mary Means sparked and has led the movement in main street revitalization for nearly four decades. While working at the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the 1970s as shopping centers were emptying downtowns, Means could see small towns needed tools to bring life back to historic town centers. She conceived of a 3-town pilot project, then led the team that took it to scale nationally. Now known as Main Street America, the program provides an integrated framework to help communities transform their economies, leverage local leadership and improve residents' quality of life. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 2019.
Harold V. Miller
Harold V. Miller was a longtime head of the Tennessee State Planning Commission. He also coauthored section 701 of the U.S. Housing Act of 1954, a program that helped to stimulate the establishment of planning schools and departments that were needed to keep up with the demand for professionally trained planners to undertake local and regional planning work that was left neglected since the Great Depression. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1990.
Corwin R. Mocine
Corwin R. Mocine, whose firm developed the Petaluma Plan of 1971, had a lifetime commitment to planning. In 1940, he helped found Telesis, an organization of San Francisco Bay Area architects and planners that is often credited with laying the foundations of post-World War II planning efforts in the region. He was active in the American Planning Association's two predecessor organizations, the American Society of Planning Officials and the American Institute of Planners. He served as AIP president in 1960–61. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1997.
Arthur Ernest Morgan
Arthur Ernest Morgan, from Ohio, was named head of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in 1933. He created the foundations for the authority's regional programs and for the new town of Norris, Tennessee. Among his many books is The Making of the TVA (1974). Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1991.
Robert Moses
Robert Moses (1888–1981) left his mark on New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County, New York, during the mid 20th century. Although never elected to public office, he was considered one of the most powerful persons in New York State government from the 1930s to the 1950s. He was chief in the design and construction of more than 400 miles of parkways, the Triborough Bridge, and Jones Beach, the world's largest public bathing beach. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1994.
Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford (1895–1990), author and critic, promoted the idea of planning through such books as The Culture of Cities (1938) and The City in History (1961), the latter of which received the National Book Award. He believed that urban planning should accentuate a natural relationship between people and their living spaces. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1989.
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Jesse Clyde Nichols
Jesse Clyde Nichols, better known as J.C. Nichols, was a major residential and commercial real estate developer in Kansas City, Missouri, during the early 20th century. His most famous projects were the Country Club Plaza and the Country Club District. Designed in 1922, the Country Club Plaza became the nation's and the world's first automobile-oriented shopping center. The Country Club District is the largest contiguous master-planned community in the country. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1989.
John Nolen, Sr.
John Nolen, Sr. was a prolific planner, known for his model new towns of Kingsport, Tennessee (1915), Venice, Florida (1926), and Mariemont, Ohio (1926). In 1907, he produced a city beautiful plan for the town of Roanoke, Virginia. His General Plan for the Remodeling of Roanoke, initiated by the Women's Civic Betterment Club, provided a blueprint for developing the town's street grid and parkway system. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1997.
Charles Dyer Norton
The Regional Plan Association, led by Charles Dyer Norton, initiated its Regional Plan for New York and Its Environs. Published in 1929, the plan was the world's first comprehensive, long-range metropolitan plan for the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut tri-state area. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1989.
Charles McKim Norton
Charles Norton was director of the Regional Plan Association of New York from 1945 until his retirement in 1969, guiding completion of the organization's second regional plan. He led the drive to create the Gateway National Recreation Area of New York and New Jersey, the nation's first urban national park. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1991.
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Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr.
Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. (1822–1903), a landscape architect, designed many well-known urban parks, most notably Central Park in New York City. He produced plans for entire systems of parks and parkways that connected cities to green spaces, such as the park system he designed for Buffalo, New York. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1990.
Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.
Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (1870–1957) is best known for continuing the work of his father, Frederick Olmsted, Sr., and his lifetime commitment to wildlife conservation and national parks, including projects at the Everglades and Yosemite National Park. He also designed Forest Hill Gardens in Queens, New York, and Palos Verdes Estates in Los Angeles County, California. He served as the first president of the American City Planning Institute. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1990.
Lawrence Orton
Lawrence Orton was the New York Regional Plan Association's secretary in the mid-1930s and a longtime member of the New York City Planning Commission. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1989.
The Outdoor Circle
The Outdoor Circle is a nonprofit community group that has been active in Hawaiian affairs since 1912. In the 1920s, the group succeeded in eliminating billboards in that state — an accomplishment that was bolstered in the 1960s by a strong state sign control law. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1992.
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Harvey S. Perloff
Harvey S. Perloff (1915–1983) was dean of the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of California at Los Angeles from 1968 until his death. In 1982, he received the first distinguished planning educator award of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. In the 1950s, Perloff headed the planning school at the University of Chicago. He is known for a series of books, including Planning the Post Industrial City, published by the American Planning Association in 1980. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1992.
Clarence Arthur Perry
Clarence Arthur Perry is the originator of the "neighborhood unit" concept, which he developed in the 1920s as associate director of the Department of Recreation of the Russell Sage Foundation. He based his principles on Forest Hills Gardens in Queens, New York, where he lived. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1991.
Planners for Equal Opportunity (1964–74)
In May 1964, a group of community activists and city planners in New York, concerned about the impact of federal housing and highway programs on the poor and people of color, decided to establish a national organization committed to economic and social justice. Three months later, on August 17, Planners for Equal Opportunity (PEO) was created during a meeting of the American Institute of Planners in Newark, New Jersey. A number of PEO's 600 members are now involved with its successor, Planners Network. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 2001.
Gifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot, America's first professionally trained forester, was one of the individuals credited with helping to initiate the conservation movement in the United States. In 1896, President Grover Cleveland appointed him to the National Forest Commission. Under President Teddy Roosevelt, Pinchot served as Chief Forester of the U.S. Forest Service, during which time the number nationally designated forests increased from 32 to 149, for a total of 193 million acres. Pinchot implemented the practice of selective rather than unrestrained harvesting of America's forests. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 2003.
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John Reps
Professor emeritus of city and regional planning at Cornell University, John Reps chaired the department from 1952 to 1964. Reps is widely known for his books on American urban history and his research into early maps and city views. His 1979 opus, Cities of the American West, won the Beveridge Award for best book on American History. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1996.
Jacob August Riis
Jacob August Riis (1849–1914) used photography and writing to reveal the terrible conditions of the urban poor in the U.S. Born in Denmark, Riis came to the United States in 1870. How the Other Half Lives (1890) and The Children of the Poor (1892) led to the first federal investigation of slum conditions and to changes in New York's housing laws that later became national models. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1992.
Charles Mulford Robinson
Charles Mulford Robinson was a chief promoter of the City Beautiful movement and was well-known as a pioneering urban planning theorist. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Robinson became the first professor of city planning (civic design) in the country. He wrote the first guide to City Planning in 1901, titled The Improvement of Towns and Cities. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1990.
James W. Rouse
James W. Rouse chaired the committee that recommended the urban renewal program included in the federal Housing Act of 1954. He is known equally as a major shopping center developer, builder of the new town of Columbia, Maryland, and creator of festival marketplaces. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1994.
Charlotte Rumbold
Charlotte Rumbold helped found the Ohio Planning Conference in 1919, the first statewide citizen-based planning group. As a lobbyist for the group in the 1920s and 1930s, she won legislative support for planning enabling laws, zoning and subdivision regulations, and public housing. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1991.
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Mel Scott
Mel Scott (1906–88) authored American City Planning Since 1890, published in 1969 and now a planning history classic. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1990.
Ladislas Segoe
Ladislas Segoe, a native of Hungary who came to the U.S. in 1922, had a distinguished career as a private planning consultant from 1928 to 1968. Segoe was an unwavering advocate of independent, professional planning and is most well-known as editor of The Local Planning Administration, also known as the "green book." First published in 1941, it was the most influential planning book in the country during the first half of the 20th century. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1991.
Ronald Shiffman, FAICP
Ronald Shiffman, FAICP, has provided program and organizational development assistance to community-based groups in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. His development of the model for community development corporations is a direct result of this groundbreaking work in the 1960s to rebuild Bedford-Stuyvesant through economic development programs. He also co-founded one of the country's first university design centers — Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development — and pushed for New York City's first inclusionary zoning policy as a commissioner on the NYC Planning Commission. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 2013.
Donald Shoup, FAICP
Donald Shoup's work has redefined the relationship between transportation and land use. He has extensively studied parking as a key link between transportation and land use, with important consequences for cities, the economy, and the environment. Shoup's book, The High Cost of Free Parking and his other innovative ideas have led to cities across the country reevaluating their parking policies with the new realization that parking has impacts not only in the here and now, but in the greater community and environment for years to come. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 2014.
Flavel Shurtleff
Flavel Shurtleff (1879–1974) was cofounder, with Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., in 1917, of the American City Planning Institute (ACPI). Shurtleff served ACPI as secretary from 1918 to 1934 and secretary of the National Conference on City Planning from 1910 to 1935. He is the author of Carrying Out the City Plan. Published in 1914, it was the first widely used American city planning text. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1992.
Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch
Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch (1867–1951) organized one of the nation's first settlement houses, Greenwich House in New York (described in her 1938 autobiography, Neighborhood: My Story of Greenwich House). She chaired the Committee on Congestion of Population, the group that organized the First National Conference on City Planning in 1909. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1992.
Robert E. Simon, Jr.
In 1962, Robert E. Simon, Jr. purchased 6700 acres in northern Virginia where people of all ages, races, and incomes could live in the same community for all their years. To fulfill this vision, Simon persuaded the Fairfax County Board of supervisors to pass the nation's first Planned Unit Community zone. The town of Reston offered a warm and welcoming community to people seeking social openness, citizen participation, and personal freedom. Reston breathed new life into the American new towns movement in the early 1960s. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 2002.
William E. Spangle
In 1938, William E. Spangle received the first degree in city planning awarded by the University of California at Berkeley. He was a founding member of Telesis, the group responsible for initiating regional comprehensive planning in the San Francisco Bay Area. His consulting firm, established in 1959, became widely known for its recommendations concerning geological hazards. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1992.
Clarence S. Stein
Clarence Stein studied architecture at Columbia University and the École des Beaux-Arts. He worked in the office of Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, where he assisted in the planning of the San Diego World's Fair (1915). Along with Lewis Mumford and Henry Wright, Stein was a founding member of the Regional Planning Association of America, a group instrumental in importing Ebenezer Howard's garden city idea from England to the United States. Stein and Wright collaborated on the design of Radburn, New Jersey (1928–32), a garden suburb noted for its superblock layout. Stein wrote Toward New Towns for America (1951).
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Telesis (1939–53)
Telesis was formed in 1939 with the goal of preserving and enhancing the unique environmental and cultural qualities of the San Francisco Bay region. In 1940, Telesis produced a popular exhibit on metropolitan planning at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The exhibit led to the resurgence of master planning and regional planning efforts in the Bay Area. Telesis members also played a major role in creating the planning program at the University of California at Berkeley in 1948. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 2001.
Rexford Tugwell
Rexford Tugwell (1891–1979) devised a plan to resettle the Depression-era poor in suburban new towns. Three towns were built: Greenbelt, Maryland; Greenhills, Ohio; and Greendale, Wisconsin. Later in his career, Tugwell served briefly as New York City planning director and as governor of Puerto Rico, where he drafted innovative laws that guided the island's postwar development. In 1946, he founded a planning program at the University of Chicago that influenced a generation of planning educators. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1995.
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Lawrence Veiller
Recognized as the leading American proponent of housing standards, codes, and enforcement during the early decades of the 20th century, Lawrence Veiller was a housing reformer and a critic of the dumbbell flats built throughout New York City after the passage of the "old law" in 1879. He led the successful campaign for revision of tenement house laws that resulted in the "new law" of 1901. He served as deputy commissioner of the New York City Tenement House Department, organized the National Housing Association, and served as its first director. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 2000.
Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown
The husband and wife team has had a profound influence on both the architecture and planning professions. Partners and owners of Venturi Scott Brown and Associates, the couple focused their work on how people interact with their environments and each other — taking that interaction into consideration in their designs and plans. Their landmark book, Learning from Las Vegas (1972), explored why so many people visited a city that was heavily criticized by architects and looked at everyday urbanism, urban sprawl, and ordinary buildings. It also reintroduced the idea of communication as a function of architecture, especially in cities. Designated National Planning Pioneers in 2014.
Francis Violich
Francis Violich, AICP, an educator and consultant, is widely recognized for his influence on urban planning in Latin America in 1944 and culminating with the book Urban Planning for Latin America: The Challenge of Metropolitan Growth in 1987. He retired from the city and regional planning faculty at the University of California at Berkeley in 1976. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1992.
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Charles Henry Wacker
A businessman and philanthropist, Charles Henry Wacker (1856–1929) was appointed Chairman of the Chicago Plan Commission in 1909. From 1909 until 1926, as Commission Chairman, he advanced the Burnham Plan for improving Chicago through speeches and newspaper articles. In 1916, he published Wacker's Manual of the Plan of Chicago as a textbook for local students. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1989.
Lillian Wald
Beginning her career as an advocate for community improvements ministering to the health needs of the poor, Lillian Wald discovered that those needs could not be addressed without comprehensive attention to the problems of the community and the region in which the poor resided. She sought legislative and design solutions for child welfare, transportation, housing, playgrounds, and open space. She helped organize the First National Conference on City Planning in 1909 and, in 1929, helped initiate the Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 2000.
David A. Wallace
David A. Wallace, AICP (1918–2004) contributed significantly to the fields of planning and urban design as a professional, builder of communities, and teacher. As a founding partner of Wallace Roberts & Todd and a professor of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania, he brought a specialized knowledge of the potential for urban redevelopment and revitalization strategies. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 2009.
Gordon Whitnall
The city and county of Los Angeles owe their planning commissions to Gordon Whitnall (1888–1977). In 1920, he succeeded in a seven-year campaign to establish a city planning commission and then became the city's first planning director. In 1922, Whitnall helped organize a regional planning conference in Los Angeles County. That same year, as a result of his efforts, the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission was established — the first county planning commission in the nation. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1994.
Lawrence P. Witzling, PhD, AIA, ASLA
For more than four decades, Larry Witzling has inspired generations of planners and urban designers. As a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Witzling shared his extensive knowledge with students and aspiring professionals. As a practitioner, he has overseen numerous award-winning urban design projects throughout Wisconsin and helped pioneer New Urbanist development. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 2017.
Donald Wolbrink
Donald Wolbrink headed the Hawaii office of Harland Bartholomew & Associates from 1948 to 1964. During that time, the firm designed a comprehensive planning program that resulted in the 1961 passage of the nation's first statewide land-use regulatory system and comprehensive plan. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1994.
Edith Elmer Wood
Edith Elmer Wood (1871–1945) wrote the landmark Slums and Blighted Areas (1934), documenting for the first time the extent of the nation's housing problems. Wood was a founder of the National Housing Conference. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1991.
Henry Wright
Henry Wright (1878–1936) was an architect and advocate of the garden city movement. He worked with Clarence Stein in the 1920s on Sunnyside Gardens in Queens, New York, and Radburn in Fairlawn, New Jersey. Sunnyside Gardens was one of the earliest developments in the country to embrace the "superblock" model in the United States. In the 1930s, he designed Chatham Village, an APA Great Neighborhood, in Pittsburgh. Designated a National Planning Pioneer in 1991.