Lawrence Vale
Publications
About Lawrence
Lawrence J. Vale is the author or editor of thirteen books examining urban design, housing, and city planning. His writing on the history, politics, and design of low-income housing in the United States, honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship, has included four sole-authored books and two co-edited volumes which have, collectively, won “best book” prizes from Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, from the Urban Affairs Association (twice), and from the International Planning History Society (three times). On more globe-spanning topics, his prize-winning book on designed capital cities (Architecture, Power, and National Identity) and his co-edited volume on post-disaster planning (The Resilient City) have each been cited more than a thousand times. His most recent book, co-authored with Zachary B. Lamb, is The Equitably Resilient City: Solidarities and Struggles in the Face of Climate Crisis.
Vale is Associate Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is Ford Professor of Urban Design and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. At MIT, Vale has won the Institute’s highest awards for teaching and for graduate student advising as well as departmental awards for advising and service to students. He served as president of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History from 2011-2013, and currently directs MIT’s Resilient Cities Housing Initiative. Vale holds degrees from Amherst College in American Studies, from M.I.T. in Architecture, and from the University of Oxford, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar, in International Relations.