Stacy Anne Harwood

Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning
PhD, University of Southern California, 2001

Professor Harwood’s research, rooted in social justice, focuses on the emerging field of planning for difference and diversity. She links scholarship to planning practice by examining how practitioners deal with the mandates of participation and equity in land-use planning and how planning codes and regulations differentially affect diverse populations. This interest is founded on years of participant-observation of planning in U.S. and Latin American cities, where she has paid particular attention to the phenomenon of multicultural communities in which planning processes that endorse the ideals of justice and tolerance nevertheless often fall short.

Research on planning in multicultural communities queries whether planning criteria and processes are compatible with the needs and desires of the residents and workforce in a diverse community. Such tensions are struggles over space and belonging in society. Professor Harwood’s research demonstrates that (1) the local government sponsored neighborhood improvement programs are problematic for neighborhood activists; they bring about positive physical change, but vitiate the effort for more fundamental, social change; (2) land use ordinances and other municipal codes serve as a city’s border checkpoints by regulating socio-cultural differences; and (3) the strategy of using “scenarios” can strengthen community planning by building both trust and planning capacity in multicultural settings, laying important groundwork to creating planning process that embrace rather than reject difference. 

Professor Harwood courses incorporate opportunities for student learning through engagement with resource-poor communities and organizations in East St. Louis, Springfield and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. She teaches planning theory, neighborhood planning, and immigration and diversity in planning. She co-teaches a ten-week interdisciplinary summer planning studio in Costa Rica where students live in a rural Costa Rica rain forest community struggling to achieve a balance between its agricultural based economy, the pressures of eco-tourism, and the desire to save the rain forest.

In her free time, Professor Harwood enjoys hanging out with her children, practicing Tae Kwon Do, and reading the newspaper with a cup of coffee on Sunday morning.

Contact Information
Room M208, Temple Buell Hall
611 Lorado Taft Drive
Champaign, IL 61820
Phone: 217.265.0874
Fax: 217.244.1717
E-mail: sharwood@illinois.edu

Current Research Areas

• Advocacy Planning in Minority Communities


• Local Government Response to Population Change and Cultural Differences


• Increasing Planning Capacity in Diverse Communities: “Scenarios”


• Preparing Planners to Work in Diverse Communities

Selected Publications

Harwood, Stacy A. and Dowell Myers. 2002. The Dynamics of Immigration and Local Governance in Santa Ana: Neighborhood Activism, Overcrowding and Land-Use Policy, Policy Studies Journal, 30(1): 70-91.

Harwood, Stacy Anne. 2003. Environmental Justice on the Streets: Advocacy Planning as a Tool to Contest Environmental Racism, Journal of Planning Education and Research, (23) 1: 24-38.

Harwood, Stacy Anne. 2005 Struggling to Embrace Difference in Land-Use Decision Making in Multicultural Communities. Planning Research and Practice, 20(4): 355-171.

Harwood, Stacy Anne and Marisa Zapata. 2006. Preparing to Plan: Collaborative Planning in Monteverde, Costa Rica. International Planning Studies, 11(3): 187-207.

Harwood, Stacy Anne. 2007. Geographies of Opportunity for Whom? Neighborhood Improvement Programs as Regulators of Neighborhood Activism. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 26(3): 261-283.

Harwood, Stacy Anne and Marisa Zapata. 2007. Creating Space for Hermeneutics in Practice: Using Visual Tools to Understand Community Narratives about the Future. Critical Policy Analysis, 1(4): 371-388.

Harwood, Stacy A. 2007. Using Scenarios to Build Planning Capacity. Chapter 7 in Lewis D. Hopkins and Marisa Zapata, eds. Envisioning Our Future: Forecasts, Scenarios, Plans, and Projects. Cambridge: Lincoln Institute for Land Policy, pgs 135-153.