Arnab Chakraborty

Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning
PhD, University of Maryland-College Park, 2007

Arnab Chakraborty is interested in factors that lead to a more efficient, equitable and sustainable urban structure, with a focus on spatial allocation of public resources, regulation of land uses, and regional variations in politics of planning. He is involved in action-oriented research that brings together representative stakeholders including business, civic and elected officials to create more effective and sustainable growth policies. He has also developed participatory and analytical tools to facilitate scenario planning processes at a regional scale that are also useful to local and state governments in quantifying land use, transportation and environmental impacts of development and development policies. His work constantly searches for more accurate ways to represent past and projected growth trends and better measures of estimating impacts. He has played a leading role in multiple regional planning exercises, most notably in Washington metropolitan area and the state of Maryland. Professor Chakraborty's recent research investigates whether there is a conceptual foundation for States to plan. To that end, his other research activities involve integrated land use and transportation modeling at the state level and evaluation of so called "smart growth" policies across states and seek to identify what make certain policies or places more successful.

Professor Chakraborty teaches Communication for Planners (UP 312), Plan Making (UP 510) and Growth Management and Regional Planning (UP 547). In the past, he has taught Microeconomics of Public Policy and Planning, Geographic Information Systems, Land Use Policy and Scenario Planning.

His doctoral specializations are in land use planning and urban economics. He also holds a Master’s degree in urban planning and policy from University of Illinois, Chicago and a Bachelor’s degree in architecture from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He is an affiliate at the National Center for Smart Growth and, in the past, has worked as an architect in India, and for the Chicago Transit Authority, taught at the University of Maryland, and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy-sponsored specialization courses at Erasmus University (The Netherlands) and Peking University (China).

**Study Abroad Announcement**: In the Winter-Intersession of 2009-2010, Professor Chakraborty will be offering an opportunity for graduate students in urban planning and related fields to study abroad in India. The two-weeks long, 2 credit course on development, infrastructure, and social and cultural challenges in a region close to the Nation's capital, is being organized in coordination with Architecture and Landscape Architecture Department at UIUC. If you are interested in more information, please write to arnab@ILLINOIS.edu. An info session is scheduled for August 31. Please check this space for updates.

Contact Information
Room M230
Temple Buell Hall
611 Taft Drive
Champaign, IL 61820
Phone: 217.244.8728
Fax: 217.244.1717
E-mail: arnab AT illinois DOT edu

Current Research Areas

Professor Chakraborty's primary research includes analysis of impacts of land use policy, models of stakeholder involvement in regional planning processes, housing and social exclusion and measures of urban form. Other interests include local government policies that influence land use, especially zoning; land resource management using GIS, planning for rural development and evolving frameworks of planning in the developing world.

Selected ongoing projects include: md-LEAM, and Maryland Scenario Project

Selected Publications

Chakraborty, A., Knaap, G., Nguyen, D., and Shin, J. H., "The Effects of High Density Zoning on Multifamily Housing Construction in the Suburbs of Six U.S. Metropolitan Areas" Urban Studies (2010) 47:5

Deal, B., Chakraborty, A., "Cyber-physical Planning Support Systems: Advancing Participatory Decision-Making in Complex Urban Environments" International Journal of Operations and Quantitative Management: Special Issue on Complex Systems (2010) 16:1.

Deal, B., Kim J.H., Chakraborty, A., "Growth Management and Sustainable Transport: Do Growth Management Policies Promote Transit Use?" Journal of Public Transportation, (2009) 12:4

Bento, A., Lowe, S., Knaap, G., and Chakraborty, A., “Housing Marker Impacts of Inclusionary Zoning" Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research (2009) 11:2

Knaap, G., Chakraborty, A., "Comprehensive Planning for Sustainable Rural Development" Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Special Issue on Rural Development Policy, (2007) 37:1

Shiffer, M., Chakraborty, A., McNeil, S., Srinivasan, S., Donahue, B., Garfield, G. "A Spatial Multimedia Representation of the Chicago Transit Authority's Rail Infrastructure" Transportation Research Record 1838, (2003) 1-10

Under Review

Chakraborty, A., "Advancing integrated land use and transportation planning: Towards sustainable urban development for India" Under Review, Land Use Policy

Chakraborty, A., "Enhancing the Role of Participatory Scenario Planning Process: Lessons from Reality Check Exercises" Under Review, Futures: Special Issue on Community Engagement and Sustainable Urban Futures

Chakraborty, A., "An Experiment in Statewide Scenario Analysis: Towards an Even Smarter Growth for Maryland" Under Review, Journal of American Planning Association

Carrell, J. and Chakraborty, A., "Equity in Access to Parks and Park Funding: A Spatiotemporal Analysis of Portland, OR" Under Review (R&R), Journal of Urbanism

Kim, J.H., Deal, B., Chakraborty, A., "Looking Beyond Density: Limitations of Contemporary State-Level Growth Management in U.S." Under Review, Land Use Policy

Please note: I am looking for motivated PhD students. If you considering applying for a PhD or you are a UIUC graduate student looking for an advisor and are interested in research on smart growth, local government policy, sustainability, GIS or modeling land use change, send me an email with your CV.

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