CURRENT ROLES:
- Professor of Urban Studies and Planning
- Interim Dean, College of Urban and Public Affairs
RESEARCH AREAS:
Evolution of planning institutions, theories and practices; urban social and political dynamics
CLASSES:
- USP 540 History and Theory of Planning
In 2012, Professor Adler published Oregon Plans: The Making of an Unquiet Land-Use Revolution, a dissection of the political history of the Oregon statewide land-use planning program. The book is based on archival research and interviews with activists and planners who worked at local, regional, and state levels. Professor Adler wrote the book to help Oregonians and others understand the roots of the program, which is well-known and highly regarded throughout the planning world, and how and why it matters for daily life. Dr. Adler is now writing a book-length complement to that work, an historical analysis of the original growth boundary around the Portland metropolitan area. A short version, "A Historical Perspective on the Metropolitan Portland Urban Growth Boundary," was published in Planning the Pacific Northwest, in 2015.
Prior to joining the PSU faculty in 1982, Professor Adler worked for the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning on transportation and growth management issues. While there he also did research about the history and politics of transportation planning in LA, and later published several articles on that subject. One paper, “The Transformation of the Pacific Electric Railway: Bradford Snell, Roger Rabbit, and the Politics of Transportation in Los Angeles,” published in 1991 in Urban Affairs Quarterly, won a best paper award from The Society for American City and Regional Planning History.
He self-designed his undergraduate major in Urban Studies, and has endeavored since then to bring an interdisciplinary perspective to his teaching, research and outreach activities.