UNC Department of City and Regional Planning

The Town of Carrboro expresses its deepest sympathy that former Carrboro Mayor Robert “Bob” Drakeford has passed away.

Mr. Drakeford made history as Carrboro’s first and only Black mayor, elected in 1977 and serving until 1983. Longtime residents remember him as the young activist mayor who was elected as part of the progressive Carrboro Coalition in the 1970s.

“Mayor Drakeford brought a planner’s sensibility and a forward-looking vision to a Carrboro that was ripe for both,” Carrboro Mayor Damon Seils said. “Many of his priorities, from expanding public transportation and improving pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure to fostering a welcoming, inclusive community, are at the heart of what we in Carrboro continue to reach for today.

“I offer sincerest condolences to Mayor Drakeford’s family from the community he made a better place.”

Mayor Drakeford served as alderman from 1975 to 1977 before being elected as mayor in 1977. A graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill’s city and regional planning program, he was an advocate for public transit and cycling, and he developed valuable collaborations with other progressive Black mayors in the South during his tenure.

Mayor Drakeford held public office when the Council (then Board of Aldermen) hired Richard Knight as the town’s first Black town manager, employed from 1976-1980. And he served as mayor during the hiring of the Town’s first professional planner, who was Black. This decision helped set high standards that eventually made Carrboro more accessible to pedestrians and cyclists. He also established a loan program to encourage business entrepreneurs, and created the Carrboro Community Park, later renamed the Hank Anderson Community Park. The biggest issue during his tenure was planning the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Bus System.

The Town of Carrboro will remember Mayor Drakeford for his service to the community, for his courage and dedication, and for laying the foundation for an inclusive community.

https://ecs.page.link/BxtcV

Jaywalking Laws – Safer for Whom? Going forward, we must ask ourselves – what role do we want policing to play in traffic enforcement?

Plan4All Speaker Series with DCRP alum Dr. Lisa Bates!

Dr. Bates is excited to meet with us and have a conversation about racial equity in planning and her work surrounding housing policy, displacement, and gentrification in historically Black neighborhoods of Portland, Oregon!

Lisa K. Bates, PhD is Associate Professor in the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning and Director of the Center for Urban Studies at Portland State University. Her scholarship focuses on housing and community development policy and planning. Dr. Bates’ research attends to the legacies of discrimination in urban policy-making and elucidates policy design and implementation strategies that can dismantle institutional racism. In 2016 she was awarded the Dale Prize for scholarship on urban planning for community self-determination and racial justice.

She holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to joining PSU’s faculty, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Save the dates for our upcoming speaker series events!

We have three exciting speakers lined up to talk about their research and work surrounding racial equity in planning! Links to bios below. All talks are on Fridays from 12:30 - 1:30 pm

Lisa Bates (professor, Portland State) - April 9 - https://www.pdx.edu/profile/lisa-bates
Keta Price (practitioner, East Oakland) - April 23 - https://www.eastoaklandcollective.com/our-team.htmlS
Darien WIlliams (PhD student, MIT) - April 30 - https://news.mit.edu/2020/darien-williams-black-resilience-0624

In this talk, Dr. Fayola Jacobs (MCRP '14) will discuss Black geographies and Black feminisms as potentially useful lenses for urban planning research on disasters and climate change. She asks, how can these lenses change the questions we ask in disaster research, and how can these changed questions help us arrive at more equitable and just environmental futures?

Jacobs completed her PhD in urban and regional sciences at Texas A&M University and earned her master’s degree in city and regional planning at UNC-Chapel Hill. Her graduate research focused on interrogating disaster mitigation plans and policies through a Black feminist lens. Before graduate school, she worked for a mental health agency, creating and facilitating anti-oppression workshops on migration, racism and mental health.

EVENT: Black Feminisms and Black Geographies - The Possibilities for Disaster and Climate Change Research with Fayola Jacobs - Center for Urban and Regional Studies The Carolina Climate Equity Commons at UNC-Chapel Hill Presents: “Black Feminisms and Black Geographies: The Possibilities for Disaster and Climate Change Research” with Fayola Jacobs

Six Carolina Planning students were awarded Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Development and Education (STRIDE) Center funding for their city and regional planning capstone projects. Capstone projects are required of students in the UNC master’s program.

“Students at UNC bring it all together by working on a master’s capstone project during their final year of the program,” said Noreen McDonald, professor and chair of the UNC Department of City and Regional Planning. “The project lets them go deep on what really interests them.” Students worked with faculty and external clients to develop and execute project ideas.

Southeastern Transport Research, Innov, Development & Education Center funding greatly benefited students, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Students faced extraordinary challenges due to COVID,” McDonald said. “In response, we created the Master’s Project Seed Fellowship program which provided funds for students to work on their project during the summer.”

STRIDE funding supported research for the following capstone projects: https://planning.unc.edu/2021/04/12923/

UNC-Chapel Hill Graduate School UNC Research UNC Graduate and Professional Student Federation

Reading for the Job Search and the Soul Search: Capital City & Prophetic City What an aspiring planner may need is a good hard look at the cities of New York and Houston, through the fresh and subversive voices of authors Samuel Stein and Stephen Klineberg.

Wow, the 2021 Open House was a huge success. Admitted students connected with current students, faculty, staff, and alumni from across the country. The event integrated live and recorded events and though the use of Gather really let informal conversations evolve.

The event was a success because of the amazing Admissions Team especially Sandra, Olivia, Marc, and Yan, but also because of the turn-out of our whole DCRP community to the event. Thanks to all those who found a way to connect with admitted students.

We know that admissions doesn’t end here. Admitted students will be making choices down to the wire of 4/15 and many of us will continue to have conversations to help them as they think through their options.

Thank you!

Noreen McDonald
Chair, City & Regional Planning

“It’s like asking about the future of shipbuilding on the deck of the Titanic,” says Roberto Quercia, a city planning professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of A Place Called Home: The Social Dimensions of Homeownership. “There is just not a lot of perspective.”

“We know from research that home instability is hugely important to the development of children,” Quercia says. It’s also a public health issue “closely connected to declines in physical and mental health,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Keeping people in their homes is the most cost-effective way to improve social well-being. Two years ago, a hospital in Chicago found it cheaper to simply pay some homeless patients’ rent than it was to continually treat the medical issues that arose from unstable housing.

“The pandemic, if nothing else, has made these cracks in our safety net obvious,” Quercia says.

The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Exacerbated Inequities in the Triangle's Housing Market Affordable housing advocates say we'll need to act quickly to address these inequities before it's too late.

Please join us in congratulating Nikhil Kaza on his promotion to full professor! Nikhil is an incredible scholar who combines deep expertise in theory and analytics. He's been a huge part of the department's efforts in urban analytics. UNC College of Arts & Sciences UNC-Chapel Hill Graduate School UNC Research

Please join us in wishing Mai the best as she leaves Carolina and takes on the role of Director of the The Design Lab at UC San Diego.

At Carolina, Mai has led conversations on community development, leadership, and diversity through her work as director of the Center for Community Capital, Academic Leadership Program, and the Moore Undergraduate Research Program at Institute of African American Research.

At UCSD, Mai will have a unique opportunity to focus her energy on making the Design Lab a model for doing teaching, research, and community engagement in one unit. We look forward to seeing the impact of this work under Mai’s directorship. This means that many units at Carolina – especially DCRP – have lost a wonderful colleague and leader. Thank you Mai!

Checkout this summer session II course and introduction to the minor in City & Regional Planning:

PLAN 101 Cities and Urban Life
M-F 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Jordan Branham

Cities have been the building blocks of civilization for millennia, functioning as hotbeds of social, cultural, and technological innovation. Studying urban life is essential for understanding how human societies developed and continue to evolve, along with an array of other topics including social inequality, political movements, and environmental change. This course focuses on cities through an interdisciplinary lens and serves as an introduction to the minor in City and Regional Planning.

Learn more about the minor: https://planning.unc.edu/academics/undergraduate/

UNC-Chapel Hill - Office of Undergraduate Admissions

Ranked #5 by Best Value Schools. With a Carolina Planning degree you can work in economic development, housing & community development, land use & environmental planning, and transportation.

Learn more and join this diverse, growing field: https://bestvalueschools.org/masters-in-urban-planning/ -5