Eugenie L. Birch, FAICP, is chair and professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. Her Master and Doctoral degrees in city planning from Columbia University.

She has more than 20 years of planning experience with expertise in land use planning, housing and citizen participation. From 1990-1995 she was a member of the New York City Planning Commission where she was involved in a wide variety of projects including Riverside South (70 acre mixed use project that reclaimed obsolete rail yards adjacent to the Hudson River and traversed by an interstate highway); waterfront provisions for the New York City Zoning Resolution (176-page amendment covering use, design standards, public access and the development of local waterfront access plans), New York City Comprehensive Waterfront Plan: Reclaiming the City’s Edge (plan for 578-mile waterfront encompassing recommendations for four development categories: the natural, public, working, and redeveloping waterfronts), Citywide Industry Study (assessment of city’s current and future needs with special attention to planning for surplus land), several Neighborhood Land Disposition Plans (planning for vacant lots and abandoned property in Harlem, Brooklyn and South Bronx) and several Neighborhood Plans (Red Hook, Chelsea, Long Island City, Downtown Flushing).

She has held a number of leadership positions in her profession, including editorship of the Journal of the American Planning Association, presidencies of the Association of Collegiate School of Planning and the Society of City and Regional Planning History.

She has published widely on housing, demography and planning history. Her book, The Unsheltered Woman reported on the results of the Ford Foundation funded Hunter College Housing Seminar she co-chaired with Donna E. Shalala.

Currently, Dr. Birch is engaged in a major study of the rise of downtown living in 45 American cities funded by Fannie Mae Foundation, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the Brookings Institution and the University of Pennsylvania. She has published preliminary results in the Journal of the American Planning Association, Greater Philadelphia Regional Review and Land Lines.