Doctoral Education and the Academic Job Market in Planning: 2017-2018

This report presents a two-part analysis of Planning PhD programs and the Planning academy job market during the 2017-2018 academic year. The study was motivated by two descriptive research questions: 1. What does the Planning academy job market look like, and how much does it change from year to year? 2. Approximately how many PhDs graduate each year and where do they go? Through the spring and summer of 2018, PhD program directors/coordinators (or other relevant members if a coordinator could not be identified or reached) were surveyed in 63 academic departments throughout the United States. Respondents provided information about the number of graduates, graduate placement at academic institutions, program specializations, publishing requirements for students, and the teaching opportunities available during PhD programs. The survey results are paired with data about the academic job market in Planning, gathered from ACSP emails and the ACSP online job postings from August 2017-July 2018. While the job market data is publicly available, it has not been tracked historically and is not available historically from ACSP. The database was designed to track not only the number of positions by rank, but also by specialization, location, and by other features. Both the survey and the job postings database are designed to continue over a five-year period. An analysis of these data reveals a competitive academic job market in Planning, with more graduates than positions, and with graduates holding both teaching and research experience. The popularity of specialization varies across program offerings and the job market, although both favor Environmental and Sustainability Planning and Transportation, Land Use and Urban Design. This report presents the data collection methods; results; shortcomings of the research; and a conclusion. Results are presented in three sub-sections: number of graduates and job openings; specializations; and graduates’ teaching and research experience

Doctoral Education and the Academic Job Market in Planning: 2019-2020

This report presents the results from the final year of a three-year study on doctoral education and the academic job market in Planning. The project set out to describe the academic job market in Planning and its trends, including both the availability of jobs and the rate at which new PhDs are granted. At the project’s end, the data show stability in several aspects of the academic job market in Planning, including the numbers of both graduates and jobs, timing of the job market, features of graduate training, and to a limited extent, the popularity of specializations

Community Development Lending by Banks in Cuyahoga County, 2015

A federal law known as the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) requires banks to report annually by Census Tract how much money they lend for community development projects. The CRA encourages banks to target community development lending in low-income and moderate income Census Tracts to strengthen community development in those areas. Community development projects include community services, affordable housing, small business development, farm lending, and other community development initiatives

Doctoral Education and the Academic Job Market in Planning: 2017-2018

This report presents a two-part analysis of Planning PhD programs and the Planning academy job market during the 2017-2018 academic year. The study was motivated by two descriptive research questions: 1. What does the Planning academy job market look like, and how much does it change from year to year? 2. Approximately how many PhDs graduate each year and where do they go? Through the spring and summer of 2018, PhD program directors/coordinators (or other relevant members if a coordinator could not be identified or reached) were surveyed in 63 academic departments throughout the United States. Respondents provided information about the number of graduates, graduate placement at academic institutions, program specializations, publishing requirements for students, and the teaching opportunities available during PhD programs. The survey results are paired with data about the academic job market in Planning, gathered from ACSP emails and the ACSP online job postings from August 2017-July 2018. While the job market data is publicly available, it has not been tracked historically and is not available historically from ACSP. The database was designed to track not only the number of positions by rank, but also by specialization, location, and by other features. Both the survey and the job postings database are designed to continue over a five-year period. An analysis of these data reveals a competitive academic job market in Planning, with more graduates than positions, and with graduates holding both teaching and research experience. The popularity of specialization varies across program offerings and the job market, although both favor Environmental and Sustainability Planning and Transportation, Land Use and Urban Design. This report presents the data collection methods; results; shortcomings of the research; and a conclusion. Results are presented in three sub-sections: number of graduates and job openings; specializations; and graduates’ teaching and research experience

Community Development Lending by Banks in Cuyahoga County, 2015

A federal law known as the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) requires banks to report annually by Census Tract how much money they lend for community development projects. The CRA encourages banks to target community development lending in low-income and moderate income Census Tracts to strengthen community development in those areas. Community development projects include community services, affordable housing, small business development, farm lending, and other community development initiatives

Doctoral Education and the Academic Job Market in Planning: 2018-2019

This report presents the results from the second year of a planned three-year study on doctoral education and the academic job market in Planning. The Year 2 survey of doctoral programs indicates that programs graduated approximately 270 new PhDs in Planning or closely allied fields during the 2018-2019 academic year—an 8% decrease from the previous academic year. Programs report that approximately 66% of students enroll with aspirations for academic careers. Extrapolating from the survey data, this suggests that of the estimated 270 graduates during academic year 2018-2019, an estimated 179 preferred an academic position. Survey data indicates an estimated 111 graduates found academic positions following graduation. Put another way, approximately 62% of those graduates likely seeking an academic position found one. The number of new PhDs securing academic appointments roughly equals the number of academic positions open to new PhDs (105). However, a new question on the Year 2 survey suggests that job seekers encountered strong competition from faculty engaging in lateral moves. Supported by this and other evidence, we argue the 111 graduates securing academic positions are not filling the 105 identified as open to new PhDs plus six other unidentified positions; they are filling a smaller number of identified jobs and a larger number of jobs promoted outside the channels evaluated in this report. Job announcements through ACSP and Planners 2040 were up slightly (5.3%) for positions beginning in Fall 2019 compared to the previous year. As in Year 1, the most popular specializations in job announcements were Environmental and Sustainability Planning and Transportation, Land Use, and Urban Design. Due to changes in both the coding protocol and database development, job specialization frequencies cannot be directly compared between Year 1 and Year 2 data. However, some trends are visible. Academic year 2018-2019 saw increased calls for applicants focusing on Social Equity, Health Care, and GIS/Big Data/Data Analytics. Other focal area changes are discussed in the report. The Year 3 report (to be released in 2020) is designed to allow the direct comparison of job specializations across years. As expected, the survey results describing PhD programs are strongly similar between Years 1 and 2. As in Year 1, the 2018-2019 results indicate that in excess of 70% of doctoral students have teaching opportunities. Proctoring and grading remain popular teaching tasks. Curriculum design remains the least commonly reported teaching responsibility for PhD students, but was more popularly reported in Year 2 versus Year 1. The majority of PhD programs require students to produce publishable research, while actually requiring publication remains very uncommon. In sum, the Year 2 results reinforce but moderate the Year 1 finding that the academic job market in Planning is competitive. There were fewer academic job openings than academically oriented graduates, and graduates face steep competition for those jobs from faculty engaging in lateral moves. Further, graduates generally have both teaching and research experience. Students will also find uneven job opportunity across specializations, with some seeing more postings than others

Thinking like a Region in Northeast Ohio? Factors that Predict Local Government Participation in Collaborative Policy and Planning

Local governments in Northeast Ohio often collaborate with one another to provide services, pursue regional initiatives, and create regional plans. Collaborative arrangements can create efficiencies, save money, improve service quality, and boost regional vitality. But they also present costs and risks that leaders must weigh against potential benefits

Thinking like a Region in Northeast Ohio? Factors that Predict Local Government Participation in Collaborative Policy and Planning

Local governments in Northeast Ohio often collaborate with one another to provide services, pursue regional initiatives, and create regional plans. Collaborative arrangements can create efficiencies, save money, improve service quality, and boost regional vitality. But they also present costs and risks that leaders must weigh against potential benefits

Mobility and Accessibility in Shrinking Cities

A University of Utah researcher explores the synthesis of mobility- and accessibility-based transportation planning in the context of urban decay

Accessibility-Based Transportation Planning: Literature and Applications for Shrinking Cities

For 15 years, scholars have claimed that accessibility-based transportation planning was at the brink of becoming a new paradigm, and yet this hope remains unrealized. Its implementation may lag due to vague definitions when compared to mobility, or because those who would benefit from accessibility-based planning lack political power to rally its support. Possibly, the lag in implementation reflects the missing linkages between theory and application for many contexts. This literature review synthesizes knowledge regarding the applications for accessibility-based transportation planning for shrinking cities along the themes of environmental, social, and economic sustainability. While residents in shrinking cities might especially benefit from such applications, context-specific challenges will require attention