Skip to main content

Faculty Profile

John Forester

Title

Professor
Director of Graduate Studies

Department

City & Regional Planning

CV

Download PDF

Address

111 W. Sibley Hall

Phone

(607) 255-5179

Email

jff1@cornell.edu
John Forester’s research into the micro-politics of the planning process, ethics, and political deliberation assesses the ways that planners shape participatory processes and manage public disputes in diverse settings. He had served as a mediator for the Community Dispute Resolution Center of Tompkins County, has consulted for the Consensus Building Institute, and has lectured in the past several years in Seattle, Chapel Hill, Sydney, Melbourne, Helsinki, Palermo, Johannesburg, Aix en Provence, Amsterdam, and Milan.

 

Forester's recent writing includes Dealing with Differences: Dramas of Mediating Public Disputes, and he has edited a manuscript with Ken Reardon for CRP’s New Orleans Planning Initiative. Forester spent the 2008–09 academic year as NICIS Scholar at the University of Amsterdam's Centre for Conflict Studies.

 

Forester served as department chair from 1998–01, and is currently the director of graduate studies. He was associate dean from 1997–98. He received his B.S., M.S., M.C.P., and Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley.

Courses (selected)

  • CRP 2010 People, Politics, and Planning in the City
  • CRP 5130 Introduction to the History and Theory of Planning
  • CRP 5460 Introduction to Community and Environmental Dispute Resolution
  • CRP 8100 Advanced Planning Theory

Publications (selected)

  • Dealing with Differences: Dramas of Mediating Public Disputes, Oxford University Press (2009)
  • “Beyond ‘Participation’: From Risk Management to Processes of Dialogue, Debate, and Negotiation,” with Reshmi Thecketil, Building Safer Communities. Risk Governance, Spatial Planning, and Responses to Natural Hazards (2009)
  • “Interface: Making a Difference in Response to Hurricane Katrina,” edited with articles by Ken Reardon, Andrew Rumbach, Praj Kasbekar, and Efrem Bycer, Planning Theory and Practice (2008)

Awards, Grants, and Fellowships (selected)

  • Urban Studies Research Grant, University of Amsterdam
  • Josephine Jones Lecturer, University Colorado-Boulder (2010)
  • John De Grove Guest Professor, Florida Atlantic University (2010)
  • NICIS Scholar, Den Haag, Holland (2008–09)
  • Cecil Sheps Social Justice lecturer, University of North Carolina (2004)

Related URLs

..