Emily Talen


Emily Talen is professor of urbanism at the University of Chicago. Her research is devoted to urban design and the relationship between the built environment and social equity. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners.
Her work has attracted over 7,000 citations listed on Google Scholar.
Her books include New Urbanism and American Planning: The Conflict of Cultures, Design for Diversity: Exploring Socially Mixed Neighborhoods, Urban Design Reclaimed: Tools, Techniques, and Strategies for Planners, and City Rules: How Regulations Affect Urban Form. She is also the editor of several volumes, the most recent of which is Retrofitting Sprawl: Addressing 70 Years of Failed Urban Form. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners.
Education and Early Years
Talen received a PhD in urban geography from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She also possesses a master's degree in city and regional planning from the Ohio State University. Previously, she was a faculty member in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. Prior to entering academia, she worked as a professional planner in Santa Barbara and Columbus, Ohio.