Philip Berke ‘81, widely regarded as one of the nation’s top land use planning scholars, is returning to Texas A&M in 2014 to rejoin the urban planning faculty and help lead the university’s Institute for Sustainable Coastal Communities.

“As the author of one of the most-widely used textbooks in the country, Urban Land Use Planning, Berke is extremely well-known to planning academics, students, and practitioners,” said Shannon Van Zandt, director of Texas A&M’s Master of Urban Planning program. “His return significantly raises the university’s profile and promises to attract top graduate students interested in land use, environmental, and disaster planning from around the world.”

Through his research findings, Berke, an urban planning faculty member at Texas A&M from 1987-1994, has revealed how cities’ environmental, social, and economic systems are affected by land use decisions. He has made major contributions in natural hazard mitigation, urban land use planning, growth management, sustainable development and environmental planning and policy, said David Godschalk, professor emeritus of city and regional planning at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, where Berke taught from 1995-2013.

Berke returns to Texas A&M twenty-five years after he founded the Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center in 1989.  To celebrate the 25-year milestone along with Berke’s return, the Center will host a spring 2014 symposium “Planning for Disaster Resilience,” that highlights the contributions of the Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center to the fields of hazards and urban planning research and practice.  

For the full story, see http://one.arch.tamu.edu/news/2013/11/26/top-planning-scholar-author-returns/

For information about the Planning for Disaster Resilience symposium, see http://hrrc.arch.tamu.edu/outreach/events/ or contact Stephanie Mogia at 979-845-7813 or [email protected].