Jason Brody

I profess urban design with an appointment in the Regional & Community Planning program. I teach lecture and seminar courses in urban design, planning history, planning theory, research methods and proposal writing, as well as studios for landscape architecture and planning students. Much of my teaching involves community planning service learning projects in the Kansas City metropolitan region. Previous projects include planning for the Rock Island Corridor, the Downtown Green Space Vision Plan for Kansas City, MO, and community planning projects for members of the Kansas City First Suburbs Coalition.

Very broadly, my research interests concern the actors and institutions responsible for shaping the physical form of metropolitan regions as well as the knowledge, skills and values that planners, designers and developers bring to their work. My research is increasingly focused on questions of language and innovation. I am particularly interested in how “big” ideas – e.g. sustainability, community, New Urbanism, or urban design – impact our work. What does it mean, for example, to plan sustainably? How did ideas of neighborhood and community shape federal housing policy through the Great Depression? Recent scholarship under review examines (a) diffusion of the neighborhood unit concept and (b) discourses underlying contemporary urban design movements.