William H. Lucy

BA Knox (1961);
MA Chicago (1964);
PhD. Syracuse (1973)

Lawrence Lewis Jr. Chair

Tomorrow’s Cities, Tomorrow’s Suburbs, William Lucy’s most recent book (with co-author David Phillips) was published in January 2006 by the American Planning Association’s Planners Press. Lucy and Phillips describe the comebacks of many pre-1940 neighborhoods during the 1990s in large cities and their suburbs. During the 1990s, middle-aged neighborhoods, especially those developed in the 1960s, tended to decline. Lucy and Phillips attribute these trends to the increasing preference of middle-income households for larger houses, which usually are farther out, or for greater convenience, which usually is achieved by being closer to the metropolitan center than the typical post-World War II bedroom suburb. They predict that the prevalence of small houses in many suburbs, houses that often are functionally obsolete and need repair and replacement of basic components, will lead to severe deterioration of neighborhoods and suburbs, given current housing preferences. They point out that in 2000 there were 155 suburbs with lower relative per capita income than Detroit, the city with the lowest income relative to its suburbs. They interpret very low incomes in these suburbs, along with strong decline trends, as signs of worse times ahead.

Lucy and Phillips previously published Confronting Suburban Decline (Island Press 2000).

Lucy currently is working on a book manuscript with the working title Metropolitan Dynamics: The Five Capabilities of Governance.

Lucy was a member of the Charlottesville Planning Commission from September 2004 to March 2008.