Paul Waddell, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair

DCRP Mission Statement. The mission of the Department of City and Regional Planning is to improve equity, the economy and the environment in neighborhoods, communities, cities, and metropolitan regions by creating knowledge and engagement through our teaching, research and service. We aim to design and create cities, infrastructure, and public services that are sustainable, affordable, enjoyable, and accessible to all.

Wisely and successfully intervening in the public realm, whether locally, nationally, or globally, is a challenge. Our urban future is complex and rapidly changing. Resource scarcity and conflict, technological innovation, retrofitting of existing built environments, and social empowerment will alter the ways in which planning has conventionally been carried out. We believe the planning academy has a special responsibility to always address social justice, equity, and ethics; to teach and research means of public participation, collective decision making, and advocacy; and to focus on reforming institutions, urban governance, policy and planning practices to make these goals possible.

Chair's Message. The mission of this department conveys dual challenges of understanding how cities and regions function — and intervening to make them better places. It is this duality that makes planning such an exciting discipline to those who want to make a difference in the cities and regions that increasingly determine the prospects for our fragile planet and its inhabitants. Planning lies at a nexus of so many disciplines and intellectual traditions. It calls for interdisciplinary synthesis to blend theoretical insights from the social sciences and the natural sciences with urban, planning, and design theories, and to use these insights to engage communities in facilitating healthier, more inclusive, and more vibrant places.

Planners and planning scholars also are increasingly called on to interpret the proliferating streams of data being generated by and about cities from land records, transportation sensors, satellite imagery, and myriad other sources in addition to qualitative observation and reflection, to seek a deeper understanding of the nature of urban places and how they function as social, economic, political, and environmental systems.

The Department of City and Regional Planning has a long and rich history of scholarship and engagement that has helped to shape the field of planning. Although the state and the university are still experiencing the impacts of the worst recession of modern times, the department is as vibrant as ever, and is rising to new challenges brought about by the economic fallout of the foreclosure crisis, the impacts of climate change, and the need to create communities and regions that are more sustainable, economically robust, and more fair and inclusive.

Among our new initiatives is an Immersive Cities Laboratory being launched in Fall 2011. It is a product of recent research projects funded by the National Science Foundation and by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission of the Bay Area, to develop 3D visualization and computer simulations of Sustainable Communities Strategies being developed within the Bay Area to curb greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the need to travel by driving alone. The project is complemented by involvement by DCRP faculty in a European Commission funded project to analyze urban sustainability in European metropolitan regions such as Brussels, Paris, and Zürich. The reach of our faculty studios and research, in fact, extends across the globe, from Nairobi to Sao Paulo, from Durban to Beijing, from Singapore to Seattle.

The 2011-12 academic year brings numerous new challenges and opportunities to DCRP. We are completing a self-study and will launch a strategic planning process in the fall, to engage our community in charting its future over the next several years. We will have a Planning Accreditation Board site visit in March 2012 to renew our accreditation. We are also welcoming a new staff member, Clay Hall, who will help deepen our capacity in student services. And we expect to recruit a new faculty member in the housing and community development area during the coming year.

As a relative newcomer to the Bay Area, to Berkeley, and to DCRP, I appreciate the long traditions of excellence within this department and campus. I look forward to not only engaging with current students, faculty and staff, but also intend to call on our alums to re-engage with the department in order to help us achieve even more in this year and in the years ahead.