Bumsoo Lee

Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning
PhD, University of Southern California, 2006

Bumsoo Lee is interested in changes in spatial structure and travel behavior in modern metropolitan areas. His research focuses on exploring how technological development is reshaping agglomeration economies and urban form, and how land use and transportation interact. These seemingly self-evident but elusive relationships are a clue to understanding many planning, transportation, and environmental issues associated with metropolitan growth. His recent research projects include studies on commuting and non-commuting travel trends in recent decades, varying commuting behaviors across different workplace and residential neighborhood types in California, the US context for congestion pricing, and emerging metropolitan spatial structure and its relationship with economic growth. He is also involved in several research projects on extreme events, analyses of economic impacts and transportation mode choice change after terrorism events.

He will teach Economics for Planners (UP 509) in the fall semester 2008, which introduces fundamental microeconomic principles, rationales for planning intervention, and economic approaches to various urban problems. His teaching experience also includes Urban and Regional Economics at University of Southern California. His other teaching interests include Urban Form and Travel Behavior, Urban Transportation Planning, Urban and Regional Analysis, and Quantitative Methods (Spatial Data Analysis).

He received his Ph.D. in Planning from the University of Southern California (USC) in December, 2006. Upon the completion of his doctoral study, he worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) at USC. He also holds a Master’s degree in Urban Planning from Seoul National University, Korea and Bachelors degree in Urban Planning from HanYang University, Korea. Before his PhD study at USC, he worked as a researcher at Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements (KRIHS) for three years.

Contact Information
Room M206
Temple Buell Hall
Phone: 217-333-3601
E-mail: bumsoo@illinois.edu

Current Research Areas

Primary research interests are in studying underlying forces of urban spatial changes, modeling the links between travel behavior and urban form at two different geographical scales, and the evaluation of growth management policies with a focus on transportation impacts

Selected Publications

Lee, Bumsoo. 2007. “Edge or edgeless cities? Urban spatial structure in U.S. metropolitan areas, 1980 to 2000,” Journal of Regional Science 47(3), pp. 479-515.

Lee, Bumsoo and Peter Gordon. 2008. “The U.S. context for highway congestion pricing,” in Richardson, Harry W. and C.-H. Christine Bae (eds.) Road Congestion Pricing in Europe: Implications for the United States. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing (Forthcoming).

Gordon, Peter, Bumsoo Lee, James E. Moore II, Qisheng Pan, Jiyoung Park, and Harry W. Richardson. 2008. “Estimating the economic impacts of WMD attacks,” in Maurer, Stephen M. and Christine Hartmann-Siantar (eds.) WMD Terrorism: Science and Policy Choices. Cambridge: MIT Press (Forthcoming).

Richardson, Harry W., Larry S. Bourne, Peter Gordon, Christopher J. Henrie, David Plane, Jim Simmons, and Bumsoo Lee. 2006. “North America: A region of core peripheral extremes,” in Geyer, H. S. (ed.) Global Regionalization: Core-Peripheral Trends. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Work in progress

Lee, Bumsoo, Peter Gordon, James E. Moore II, and Harry W. Richardson. “Commuting trends in U.S. cities in the 1990s,” Submitted to Journal of Planning Education and Research.

Lee, Bumsoo and Peter Gordon. “Efficient spatial structure? Urban structure and growth in U.S. metropolitan areas,” Submitted to Journal of Regional Science.

Lee, Bumsoo, Peter Gordon, James E. Moore II, and Harry W. Richardson. “The importance of non-work travel in residential location, land use, and transportation,” Submitted to Transportation.

Lee, Bumsoo, Peter Gordon, James E. Moore II, Jiyoung Park, and Harry W. Richardson. “Estimating the state-by-state economic impacts of a foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) attack,” Submitted to International Regional Science Review.

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