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Professional Organizations
American Planning Association
The American Planning Association provides leadership in the development of vital communities for all by advocating excellence in planning, promoting education and resident empowerment, and providing our members with the tools and support necessary to ethically meet the challenges of growth and change.
Urban Affairs Association
The Urban Affairs Association (UAA) is the international professional organization for urban scholars, researchers, and public service professionals.
American Public Transportation Association
APTA leads public transportation in a new mobility era, advocating to connect and build thriving communities.
American Society of Landscape Architects
Founded in 1899, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) is the professional association for landscape architects in the United States, representing more than 15,000 members. The Society’s mission is to advance landscape architecture through advocacy, communication, education, and fellowship.
International Society of City and Regional Planners
Founded in 1965, the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP) is a global association of professional city and regional planners. Our network brings together individual and institutional members from 85+ countries with the vision to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable through integrative participatory urban and territorial planning.
Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA)
The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) is a nonprofit association that provides education and training, a vibrant and connected community, advocacy for geospatial challenges and issues, and essential resources for GIS professionals throughout their careers.
Additional Resources
Eviction Lab
The Eviction Lab at Princeton University has built the first nationwide database of evictions. Find out how many evictions happen in your community. Create custom maps, charts, and reports.
The Once and Future City, MIT
What is a city? What shapes it? How does its history influence future development? How do physical form and institutions vary from city to city and how are these differences significant? How are cities changing and what is their future? This course will explore these and other questions, with emphasis upon twentieth-century American cities. A major focus will be on the physical form of cities—from downtown and inner-city to suburb and edge city—and the processes that shape them.
American Communities Project
A combined political science/journalism effort based at George Washington University, the ACP uses a vast array of data – from elections results and economic numbers to consumer survey and poling – to break communities into different types for analysis. The primary point: Even in the age of the Web, people in different places experience the world very differently.
Boston Area Research Initiative (BARI)
BARI seeks to spur original, cutting-edge research in the greater Boston area that both advances urban scholarship and improves public policy and practice. Central to this mission is an overarching effort to forge active and mutually beneficial relationships between the region’s researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and civic leaders.
Brookings Institution, Metropolitan Policy Program
Our mission is to deliver research and solutions that help metropolitan leaders build an advanced economy that works for all.
Crime in Boston (Boston Public Library)
Boston has had many infamous criminals and crimes in its long history. This guide will highlight a few of them and provide guidance for further research.
H-URBAN
We are a moderated multi-disciplinary forum for discussion and dissemination of scholarship on urban history and urban studies. As a member of H-NET (Humanities and Social Sciences OnLine), H-URBAN has no geographical or chronological boundaries. Thus, we welcome the involvement of scholars, professionals, and graduate students who are interested in urban places and processes across the globe and in all eras. In addition to our on-going discussion, our Web Pages offer a wide range of information and services to urbanists
HUD USER
Managed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R), HUD User hosts research, publications, and data sets in housing, community development, and more.
National Housing Institute
The National Housing Institute supports the individuals and organizations that work to create healthy and thriving communities. NHI is at the intersection of theory, practice and policy in community development.
National League of Cities
The National League of Cities (NLC) is dedicated to helping city leaders build better communities. Working in partnership with the 49 state municipal leagues, NLC serves as a resource to and an advocate for the more than 19,000 cities, villages and towns it represents.
National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership
The National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) is a collaborative effort by the Urban Institute and local partners to further the development and use of neighborhood information systems in local policymaking and community building.
Planetizen
Planning: A professional practice and an academic study focused on the future of built environments and connected natural environments—from the smallest towns to the largest cities and everything in between. Planetizen: The independent resource for people passionate about planning and related fields.
Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston
The Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston strives to improve the governance of Greater Boston by strengthening connections between the region’s scholars, students, and civic leaders. A university-wide entity housed at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, the Institute pursues this mission by promoting emerging leaders, stimulating informed discussion, and producing new ideas.
Sustainable Cities Index
The Sustainable Cities Index explores the three demands of People, Planet and Profit to develop an indicative ranking of 100 of the world's leading cities.
The Urban Institute
We conduct sophisticated research to understand and solve real-world challenges in a rapidly urbanizing environment. Our work engages communities at multiple levels—city, state, and country—as we gather data and evaluate programs. Urban Institute scholars blend academic rigor with on-the-ground collaboration, teaming with policymakers, community leaders, practitioners, and the private sector to diagnose problems and find solutions.
Working in Paterson: Occupational Heritage in an Urban Setting
This collection presents 470 interview excerpts and 3882 photographs from the Working in Paterson Folklife Project of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. The four-month study of occupational culture in Paterson, New Jersey, was conducted in 1994
The Urban Fringe: A Practitioners Blog, from the Berkeley Planning Journal
The Berkeley Planning Journal is a peer-reviewed publication, produced in collaboration between graduate students at the Department of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. The Urban Fringe is a production of the BPJ, with a focus on planning practice.
Lewis Mumford Center (University of Albany)
Established at the University of Albany in 1988 to carry out urban research both comparative and historical in scope, the Center honors the tradition of interdisciplinary scholarship established by Lewis Mumford (1895-1990). Mumford was a native New Yorker internationally recognized as one of the most distinguished urbanists of the 20th Century.
