About . . . Emily Talen

Emily Talen is an associate professor in the department of urban and regional planning at the University of Illinois , Urbana-Champaign. She received a Ph.D. in urban geography from the University of California , Santa Barbara in 1995. Prior to that, she worked as a professional planner for the City of Santa Barbara for 6 years. She worked extensively on the downtown Santa Barbara redevelopment project known as Paseo Nuevo. She has a master’s degree in city and regional planning from Ohio State University , and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. She has more than 30 publications on a variety of topics dealing with urban sprawl, city form and pattern, new urbanism, and the social implications of community design. She received two grants from the National Science Foundation. Her research focuses on the evaluation of urban form and pattern, the relationship between human diversity and the built environment, and the measurement of people’s preferences and attitudes about their local environments. She has recently completed a book that traces the historical lineage of new urbanism.