VALE, J. LAWRENCE

Professor of Urban Design and Planning
Head of the Department of Urban Studies
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Lawrence Vale is Professor Urban Design and Planning and Head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, where he has taught since 1988. He holds degrees from Amherst College (B.A. in American Studies, summa cum laude), M.I.T. (S.M.Arch.S.), and the University of Oxford (D.Phil.), which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar.  Vale is the author or editor of six books examining urban design and housing.  Architecture, Power, and National Identity (1992; 2nd edition, 2008), a book about capital city design on six continents, received the 1994 Spiro Kostof Book Award for Architecture and Urbanism.

Much of Professor Vale's most recent published work has examined the history, politics, and design of American public housing. His book, From the Puritans to the Projects:  Public Housing and Public Neighbors (2000) received the 2001 "Best Book in Urban Affairs" Award from the Urban Affairs Association. A second volume, Reclaiming Public Housing:  A Half Century of Struggle in Three Public Neighborhoods (2002)  received the Paul Davidoff Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning in 2005. This community-focused research has been supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has received both the 1997 Chester Rapkin Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, a 1999 EDRA/Places Award for “Place Research,” and 2004 John M. Corcoran Award for Community Investment.

Vale is also Co-Editor, with Sam Bass Warner, Jr., of Imaging the City:  Continuing Struggles and New Directions (2001), and co-editor, with Thomas J. Campanella, of The Resilient City:  How Modern Cities Recover From Disaster (2005), recognized as one of the “Ten Best Books for 2005” by Planetizen.  Finally, he is the author of a monograph about the history of the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Changing Cities:  75 Years of Planning Better Futures at MIT (2008).