Upcoming Events

June Williamson

The Annual Isadore Candeub Memorial Lecture in Planning on December 8 (7:30 pm) will feature City College of New York Associate Professor of Architecture June Williamson discussing the book she co-authored with Ellen Dunham-Jones, Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs. Click here to learn more.

Professor Rachelle Alterman of Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, will deliver this year's Edward J. Bloustein and Ruth Ellen Steinman Memorial Lecture on Feb. 25, 2010, speaking on "Politics of the Environment in Israel."

Recent Events

The Bloustein School offers an active schedule lectures, films, conferences and seminars throughout the year. Recent highlights included:

Fall 2009 R/ECON™ Conference

The economic downturn will last longer in New Jersey than the nation as whole, with expansion not forecast until 2016, economist Nancy Mantell, director of the Rutgers Economic Advisory Service, reported at the Fall 2009 R/ECON™ conference.

Nancy Mantell

The economic turnaround should begin in 2011, but it will take New Jersey until 2019 to finally exceed its 2007 employment base, adding 118,000 jobs, or 2.9 percent over that peak, Mantell said. “The country, in contrast, will begin job expansion three years earlier, at the beginning of 2013,” she said, “and by 2019, it will have 7.7 percent more jobs than at the previous peak.”

Bloustein School Dean James W. Hughes and University Professor Joseph Seneca joined Mantell with observations about the national economic picture. Joel Cantor, director of Rutgers’ Center for Health Care Policy, spoke about the health care industry’s contributions to New Jersey’s economy.

New Jersey’s recession began in January 2008, one month after the nation, and since 2009, the Garden State has shed jobs at a slower pace. But, unlike the U.S.,  New Jersey has lost more jobs than it gained during the expansion of 2003 to 2008,  Mantell said.

Joel Cantor

The only growth sectors during the long slump have been educational and health services, and other service industries, while the job losses have come out of manufacturing, construction and professional and business services. “The professional and business services sector will turn around during the recovery, and will be, as it was during the past decade, a strong contributor to growth,” Mantell predicted. Construction should pick up in 2010, she added.

R/ECON, offered by the Center for Urban Policy Research at the Bloustein School, provides its subscribers, including business and government agencies, comprehensive forecasting tools to plan their operations in line with expectations about the economic environment.

The Obama Administration and the Future of U.S. Transportation Policy

Roy Kienitz, the Under Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation, discussed the Obama Administration's transportation priorities as the guest of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center in November. Kienitz said that advancing safety, livability, sustainability, and economic recovery were the administration's primary transportation objectives. Kienitz will play a key role in the multi-year reauthorization of the federal transportation program and outlined reforms that the administration will work with Congress to address.

New Jersey’s Economy: Status of Gloom and Prospects for Bloom

Sponsored by the New Jersey League of Municipalities Educational Foundation, the half-day program in October examined the economic downturn from the national, New York regional and New Jersey perspectives. Dean James W. Hughes moderated a panel on current economic conditions and Professor Henry Coleman moderated a second panel on the economic outlook.

Planning and Designing Climate-Friendly Towns: A Workshop for DEP Grants

Co-sponsored by the New Jersey Sustainable State Institute, NJ Future and the Mayors Committee for a Green Future, the July workshop familiarized municipal and county officials with a new state grants program, the Local Government Greenhouse Gas Reduction Program. The workshop focused specifically on the development and implementation of climate-friendly design guidelines and zoning standards that allow for compact, walkable mixed-use development and/or transit-oriented development. The Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center partnered in the event.

Special Presentations for Faculty, Students and Staff

The Bloustein School has expanded its offerings of presentations for faculty, students and staff.  The Urban Planning and Policy Development Program began sponsoring a Tuesday film series on planning subjects ranging from garden suburbs to globalization. One-hour films are screened, followed by discussions led by Dr. Robert W. Burchell, the program chair. Many of the presentations include faculty members who are expert in the subject area.

The Bloustein Colloquium, a series of weekly presentations by faculty and outside speakers on various issues of current interest that was introduced last spring, has returned for the 2009/10 school year.  Among the presenters were Assistant Professor Gabriella Carolini, who spoke of her recent experiences in Mozambique, Columbia University Assistant Professor Stacey Sutton who will address “The Dynamic Identity of Black Entrepreneurs, and Rutgers-Camden Chancellor Wendell Pritchett who spoke about “Robert Weaver and the American City.”

In honor of the late Professor Donald A. Krueckeberg, the Bloustein School in April initiated an annual Doctoral Conference in Planning and Public Policy. Professor Robert Noland and Assistant Professor Gabriella Carolini moderated presentations by eight Bloustein School doctoral candidates. The event opened with a retrospective on Professor Krueckeberg's contributions to the Bloustein School's doctoral program and the planning profession.

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And, a “Food for Thought” series was introduced, offering a 40-minute “express” lunchtime discussion of a policy and/or planning-related topic of general interest to the school community. Subjects include:  the H1N1 virus, health care reform, political developments in Iran, the New Jersey gubernatorial election, and the economy.

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