Robert Goodspeed
Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning
Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan
New digital technologies hold the potential to address contemporary cities’ many challenges by helping to inform planning discussions and by enabling urban innovations like smart cities and online crowdfunding. I seek to further this potential in my research activities by developing a detailed, empirical, and theoretically informed body of knowledge that learns from—and propels forward—the practices of professionals and citizens working in these areas. My research integrates social and technical perspectives, features a focus on new technology, and is based on a foundation in the pragmatic philosophical tradition. In addition, almost all of my research projects involve engagement with relevant practitioners, stakeholders, and communities. A major theme of my research is to investigate the nexus between digital technologies and collaborative planning, to explore how technology can be used within a humanistic and emancipatory planning practice. My book, Scenario Planning for Cities and Regions, contains an accessible description of the key ideas and theories of scenarios, collaboration, and complexity that underlie my work.
I primarily teach courses for professional-degree students that aim to cultivate reflective practitioners who graduate with professional skills and are prepared to engage in continuous learning throughout their careers. These include courses in planning methods, geographic information systems (GIS), collaborative planning, and scenario planning. See below for recent syllabi.
I received the Donald Schön Award for Excellence in Learning from Practice in 2013, and was named a Top 25 Leading Thinker in Urban Planning & Technology by the website Planetizen in 2011. Previously, I worked at the Boston Metropolitan Area Planning Council and founded three place-based blogs: Rethink College Park (2006-2008), DCist.com (2004-2006), ArborUpdate (2004). I have a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from MIT, a Master of Community Planning from the University of Maryland, and BA in History from the University of Michigan.
Recent updates are available on my blog. For a complete listing of my publications, see my Google Scholar profile.
Research Areas and Projects
Selected publications and products.
Michigan Zoning Atlas
Website: MIZoningAtlas.org
Justice InDeed: Mapping Racially Restrictive Covenants & The Black Washtenaw County Collaborative (2020- )
Website: JusticeInDeedMI.org
Michigan Daily, Riley Hodder, 7 Feb. 2020, "Program works to address racially restrictive covenants in Ann Arbor"
MLive.com, "Researchers map Ann Arbor's racist history of housing discrimination"
Benton Harbor Smart Mobility (2019-2024 )
Goodspeed, R., et al. (2023) Improving Transit in Small Cities through Collaborative and Data-driven Scenario Planning. Case Studies on Transport Policy.
Goodspeed R., Yuan M., Krusniak A., Bills T. (2021) Assessing the Value of New Big Data Sources for Transportation Planning: Benton Harbor, Michigan Case Study. In: Geertman S.C.M., Pettit C., Goodspeed R., Staffans A. (eds) Urban Informatics and Future Cities. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham.
Southeast Michigan Green Infrastructure and Water Quality (2018- )
Sponsor: McIntire-Stennis Research Program, U-M Graham Sustainability Institute
Goodspeed, Robert, Runzi Wang, Camilla Lizundia, Lingxiao Du, and Srishti Jaipuria. "Incorporating Water Quality Into Land Use Scenario Analysis with Random Forest Models." Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 2022.
Goodspeed, Robert, Ruoshui Liu, Dimitrios Gounaridis, Camilla Lizundia, and Joshua Newell. “A Regional Spatial Planning Model for Multifunctional Green Infrastructure.” Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 2021.
Gounaridis, Dimitrios, Joshua P. Newell, and Robert Goodspeed. “The Impact of Urban Sprawl on Forest Landscapes in Southeast Michigan, 1985-2015.” Landscape Ecology, 2020.
Scenario Planning for Cities and Regions with Planning Support Systems (2013- )
Book: Scenario Planning for Cities and Regions: Managing and Envisioning Uncertain Futures
Avin, Uri, Robert Goodspeed, and Lily Murnen. "From Exploratory Scenarios to Plans: Bridging the Gap." Planning Theory & Practice, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 647-646, 2022.
Varley, Ian, Robert Goodspeed, and John Egelhaaf. "Scenario Planning for Slow-Growing Regions: A Guidebook and Case Study." Working Paper, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Avin, Uri., and Robert Goodspeed. “Using Exploratory Scenarios in Planning Practice: A Spectrum of Approaches.” Journal of the American Planning Association, vol. 86, no. 4, pp. 403-416, 2020.
Goodspeed, Robert. “Digital Knowledge Technologies In Planning Practice: From Black Boxes to Media for Collaborative Inquiry.” Journal of Planning Theory & Practice, vol. 17 no. 4, pp. 577-600, 2016.
Goodspeed, Robert and Cassie Hackel. "Lessons for developing a planning support system infrastructure: The case of Southern California's Scenario Planning Model." Environment and Planning B, vol. 46, no. 4, pp. 777-796, 2017.
Goodspeed, Robert. "Sketching and Learning: A PSS Field Study." Environment and Planning B, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 444-463, 2015.
Survey Instrument: Planning Workshop Evaluation Survey Technical Memorandum
Michigan Eviction Mapping (2019-2020)
Sponsor: UM Poverty Solutions
Benton, Elizabeth, Margaret Dewar, Robert Goodspeed, and Robert Gillett. Reducing Michigan Evictions: The Pandemic and Beyond. University of Michigan Poverty Solutions, 2021.
Goodspeed, Robert, Elizabeth Benton, Kyle Slugg, and Margaret Dewar. Michigan Evictions: Trends, Data Sources, and Neighborhood Determinants. University of Michigan Poverty Solutions, 2020.
Robert Goodspeed, Elizabeth Benton & Kyle Slugg (2021) "Eviction Case Filings and Neighborhood Characteristics in Urban and Rural Places: A Michigan Statewide Analysis," Housing Policy Debate.
Urban Informatics & Smart Urbanism (2014- )
Goodspeed, R., T. Xie, T. R. Dillahunt, and J. Lustig, J. “An Alternative to Slow Transit, Drunk Driving, and Walking in Bad Weather: An Exploratory Study of Ridesourcing Mode Choice and Demand.” Journal of Transport Geography, vol. 79, 2020.
Goodspeed, Robert. “Participatory E-Planning with Civic Crowdfunding: Donor Background, Involvement, and Social Capital Outcomes.” International Journal of E-Planning Research, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 68-87, 2019.
Goodspeed, Robert. "Smart cities: moving beyond urban cybernetics to tackle wicked problems." Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 2015.
Goodspeed, Robert. "Urban Informatics: Defining an emerging field." In Big Data for Regional Science, edited by L. Schintler and Z. Chen. Routledge, 2017.
A Big Data Approach to Neighborhood Effects Health Research (2015-2019)
Vydiswaran, V. G. Vinod, Daniel M. Romero, Xinyan Zhao, Deahan Yu, Iris Gomez-Lopez, Jin Xiu Lu, Bradley E Iott, Ana Baylin, Erica C. Jansen, Philippa Clarke, Veronica J. Berrocal, Robert Goodspeed, and Tiffany C. Veinot. “Uncovering the Relationship between Food-related Discussion on Twitter and Neighborhood Characteristics.” Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, vol. 27, no. 2, 2019, pp. 254-264.
Goodspeed, Robert, Xiang Yan, Jean Hardy, V.G. Vinod Vydiswaran, Veronica J. Berrocal, Philippa Clarke, Daniel M. Romero, Iris N. Gomez-Lopez, and Tiffany C. Veinot. “Comparing the Data Quality of GPS Devices and Smartphones for Assessing Relationships between Place, Mobility, and Health: A Field Study.” JMIR mHealth, vol. 6, 2018, p. e168.
Shen, Ying, Philippa Clarke, Iris N. Gomez-Lopez, Alex B. Hill, Daniel M. Romero, Robert Goodspeed, Veronica J. Berrocal, V.G. Vinod Vydiswaran, and Tiffany C. Veinot. “Using Social Media to Assess the Consumer Nutrition Environment: Comparing Yelp Reviews with A Direct Observation Audit Instrument for Grocery Stores.” Public Health Nutrition, vol. 22, no. 2, 2019, pp. 257-264.
Jean Hardy, Tiffany C. Veinot, Xiang Yan, Veronica J. Berrocal, Philippa Clarke, Robert Goodspeed, Iris N. Gomez-Lopez, Daniel Romero, and V.G. Vinod Vydiswaran. “User Acceptance of Location-Tracking Technologies in Health Research: Implications for Study Design and Data Quality.” Journal of Biomedical Informatics, vol. 79, 2018, pp. 7-19.
Iris Gomez-Lopez, Philippa Clarke, Alex B. Hill, Daniel M. Romero, Robert Goodspeed, Veronica J. Berrocal, V.G. Vinod Vydiswaran, and Tiffany C. Veinot. “Using Social Media to Identify Sources of Healthy Food in Urban Neighborhoods.” Journal of Urban Health, vol. 94, 2017, pp. 429-436.
California Groundwater Game (2017-2019)
Sponsor: Environmental Defense Fund
Tool: The Groundwater Game
Goodspeed, Robert, Christina Babbitt, Ana Lucia Garcia Briones, Emily Pfleiderer, Camilla Lizundia, and Colleen M. Seifert. “Learning to Manage Common Resources: Stakeholders Playing a Serious Game See Increased Interdependence in Groundwater Basin Management.” Water, vol. 12, no. 7, 2020, p. 1966.
Web-based Spatial Decision Support Systems for Environmental Management and Planning (2014-2016)
Goodspeed, Robert et al. 2016. Applying design thinking methods to ecosystem management tools: Creating the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Explorer." Marine Policy 69, 134-145.
Goodspeed, Robert, Arthur Prokosch, Catherine Riseng, Lacey Mason, Kevin Werhly. 2014. A Review of Great Lakes Web-Based Geospatial Information Tools. Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Framework project
Detroit Urban Renewal (2004)
I first became interested in urban issues as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, where I wrote a thesis about an early Detroit urban renewal project.
Undergraduate Thesis: "Urban Renewal in Postwar Detroit: The Gratiot Area Redevelopment Project" (pdf) (2004)
Teaching
Graduate Certificate in Urban Informatics
I serve as the faculty director for this graduate certificate, open to any current UM graduate student. Visit the program website to learn more or apply.
New Mobility Online Course Module
I taught a module on "Planning, Urban Design, and Systems Integration" within a broader Foundations of Mobility online course. My module includes sessions on scenario planning, urban sustainability frameworks, street design, and emerging modes.
Courses
Engagement
Commentary
"Collaboration on planning, innovation the key to a more sustainable Ann Arbor," 31 August 2022, The Michigan Daily.
"Stop expanding the damn roads and rethink MI's transportation future," 13 October 2022, Bridge Michigan.
On Campus
Michigan Interactive and Social ComputingA research group that connects researchers studying human-computer interaction, social computing, and computer-supported cooperative work across the University of Michigan.
Graham Sustainability InstituteI participate in funded research, meetings, and other activities sponsored by UM's campus-wide sustainability institute.
Research Collaborators
Civic Crowdfunding ProjectPatronicityioby
Scenario Planning ResearchLincoln Institute of Land Policy (funder)
Professional
Computers in Urban Management and Urban Planning (CUPUM)Board Member