In July of 2017, the Urban Planning program joined the School of Public Affairs and Administration at the University of Kansas which is ranked #1 in local government management and #9 in public management and leadership according to the 2017 U.S. News and World Report.
Urban Planning faculty are experts and leaders in urban policy and related fields.
Professor Bonnie J. Johnson's research draws from the related fields of urban planning, political science, and public administration. All three fields seek to understand how elected officials, public servants, and citizens interact with each other, governmental structures, and bureaucratic agencies to pursue the common good. This focus results in research on civic bureaucracy, the planning profession, staff reports, media and planning, comparative studies of public service professions and their codes of ethics, and transportation and land use policy related to sustainability. At the 2017 National Planning Conference, her session "Leading with Staff Reports" was among the 10 most attended and talked about sessions at the conference out of 160 sessions with 6,300 conference attendees.
Johnson, B. J. and Lyles, W. (2016). The Unexamined Staff Report: Results from an Evaluation of a National Sample. Journal of the American Planning Association, 82(1), 22-36.
Johnson, B. J. and Halegoua, G. R. (2015). Can Social Media Save a Neighborhood Organization? Planning Practice & Research, 30(3), 248-269.
Johnson, B. J. (2012). TV, Boon or Bane? Interactive Democracy and a Televised Town Meeting. Planning Theory & Practice. 13 (2), 275-293.
Johnson, B. J. (2012). Public Service Motivation and the Technical, Political, and Facilitator Roles of City Planners. International Journal of Public Administration, 35 (1), 30-45.
Professor Ward Lyles's research and teaching interests center on the intersection of people, the built environment, and the natural environment with a recent focus on the use of land use approaches to reduce long-term risks from natural hazards and climate change. Lyles recently received a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER grant to study local decision making aimed at mitigating natural hazards and damages due to disasters, such as flooding and hurricanes.
Professor Kirk McClure's research is focused on the provision of affordable housing and the behavior of housing markets. His work examines the performance of various federal assisted housing programs in terms of helping to break down barriers preventing the poor and minorities from living in high-opportunity neighborhoods. His work has won multiple awards. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development supports his research and appointed him to the position of Scholar in Residence. In August 2017, McClure was asked to present testimony on the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee Hearing on America's Affordable Housing Crisis: Challenges and Solutions.
McClure, K., Forthcoming, What should be the future of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program? Housing Policy Debate.
McClure, K. 2018. The Allocation of Rental Assistance Resources: The Paradox of High Housing Costs and High Vacancy Rates. The International Journal of Housing Policy.
McClure, K. 2018. Length of Stay in Assisted Housing. Cityscape 20(1): 11-38.
McClure, K., A. Schwartz and L. Taghavi. 2016. Vouchers and Neighborhood Distress: The Unrealized Potential for Families with Housing Choice Vouchers to Reside in Neighborhoods with Low Levels of Distress. Cityscape 18(3): 207-227.
McClure, K. and B. Johnson. 2015. Housing Programs Fail to Deliver on Neighborhood Quality Re-examined. Housing Policy Debate 25(3): 463-496.
McClure, K., A. Schwartz and L. Taghavi. 2015. Housing Choice Voucher Location Patterns a Decade Later. Housing Policy Debate 25(2): 208-214.
Professor Stacey Swearingen White's research sits broadly in the realm of environmental planning and sustainability. She is especially interested in questions of what conditions facilitate new sustainability practices at the local government level, and within higher education. White's work has examined innovations in stormwater management, campus sustainability plans, water quality perceptions, and the future of rural Kansas communities. White co-founded the center for Sustainability at the University of Kansas. As part of this position, White assisted in the development and implementation of Campus Sustainability Plan. White was also a co-principal investigator for a 5-year, National Science Foundation-funded grant project team looking at how biofuels production and climate change concerns are influencing Kansas farmer land use decisions.
White, S.S, and T. Selfa. 2013. Shifting Lands: Exploring Kansas Farmer Decision-making in an Era of Climate Change and Biofuels Production. Environmental Management 51(2): 379-391. DOI: 101007/s00267-012-9991-6.