NCID-1134
Margaret Dewar
Professor Emerita of Urban and Regional Planning, A Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
University of Michigan
Education/Degree:
1 Urban Studies and Planning (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
About
Margaret Dewar is professor emerita of urban planning at the University of Michigan. Her research and teaching have focused on planning in cities that have lost much of their peak populations. She now spends full time on research. The work touches on policy in land use, housing, employment, and environmental issues. In both research and teaching she has focused on Detroit, the premier example of a city that has experienced severe decline, to derive findings useful in many cities. She received a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a master?s in city planning from Harvard University, and a bachelor?s degree from Wellesley College.
Current Work
Margaret Dewar focuses on American cities that have lost a large share of their peak population and employment and now face major issues with property disinvestment. These cities include most of the past manufacturing centers of the Midwest and many of those in the Northeast. She aims to strengthen urban planning’s capacity to improve conditions for people who live and work in such places. In most of these cities African Americans live in the areas hardest hit by disinvestment because of segregation and historic and current policies that disadvantage them in housing and labor markets. The focus of urban planning has traditionally been to revitalize, rebuild, and redevelop disinvested areas, but such renewal is no longer possible in many areas of these cities. This means that urban planners need to reframe the way they understand their work and change their approaches to improve quality of life for most residents.
Research Area Keyword(s)
community development, housing, legacy cities, neighborhood strengthening, vacant property reuse