Timothy Beatley

BCP Virginia (1979);
MUP Oregon (1981);
MA North Carolina (1984);
PhD. North Carolina (1986)

Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities

Timothy Beatley is Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities, in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, where he has taught for the last eighteen years. His primary teaching and research interests are in environmental planning and policy, with special emphasis on coastal and natural hazards planning, environmental values and ethics, and biodiversity conservation. He has published extensively in these areas, including the following recent books: Ethical Land Use (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994); Habitat Conservation Planning: Endangered Species and Urban Growth (University of Texas Press, 1994), Natural Hazard Mitigation (Island Press, 1999, with David Godschalk and others); and An Introduction to Coastal Zone Management (Island Press, 2002, Second Edition, with David Brower and Anna Schwab).

In recent years much of his research and writing has been focused on the subject of sustainable communities, and creative strategies by which cities and towns can fundamentally reduce their ecological footprints, while at the same time becoming more livable and equitable places. To this end, he is the recent author of The Ecology of Place (Island Press, 1997), with Kristy Manning, which reviews innovative local sustainability practice from around the country and provides practical guidance on creating more sustainable urban form, restorative local economies, and stronger communities. Beatley has recently returned from a year’s research in Europe, specifically examining the experiences of some 30 cities, in twelve European countries. The findings of this study have been published in a recent book entitled Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities (Island Press, 2000). He is also the author of a new book Native to Nowhere: Sustaining Home and Community in a Global Age (also published by Island Press, December, 2004).

Beatley holds a PhD in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill