Urban Planning Professor Arlie Adkins Discusses Sidewalk Deficiencies in Cities in Bloomberg CityLab Article
Arlie Adkins, Associate Professor of Urban Planning.
Arlie Adkins, assistant professor of urban planning in the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture, was quoted in a June 16, 2020 article on the critical role that good pedestrian infrastructure plays in city life appearing in Bloomberg CityLab.
The article begins, “Stuck at home because of the coronavirus, millions of urban residents suddenly became acutely aware of an easily overlooked element of urban infrastructure: their neighborhood sidewalks (or lack thereof).”
One fundamental problem, Adkins says in the article, is how infrastructure for the automobile has been prioritized over the pedestrian. “There’s only so much space between buildings, and we’ve made some clear choices about how that should be distributed,” he says. Pedestrians, and the sidewalks they use, lose out.
Adkins, who joined CAPLA in 2013, researches the interconnectedness of transportation equity, affordable housing and public health. He teaches transportation planning, planning theory and the Master of Science in Urban Planning master’s capstone studio, and also holds a joint appointment in the Health Promotion Sciences Department at the University of Arizona’s Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. Akins earned his PhD in Urban Studies from Portland State University and Master’s in City Planning from University of California, Berkeley.
