Arnab Chakraborty, AICP

Biography

Arnab Chakraborty is a Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. His research concerns critical questions of housing and infrastructure development, land use regulations, and the role of technology in advancing urban analysis and planning. A central theme in his research is measuring and advancing social equity impacts of planning decisions. From 2018-2021, Professor Chakraborty served as the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs in the College of Fine and Applied Arts with the responsibility to oversee the college’s research support efforts, administer the promotion and tenure process, and lead the college’s faculty mentoring program. At Illinois, Professor Chakraborty is also affiliated with the Center for Global Studies, and Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. In addition to his academic appointments, Professor Chakraborty is an associate editor of the Journal of the American Planning Association, an editorial board member of the Journal of Urban Management, and a board member of the Consortium for Scenario Planning. Professor Chakraborty has also served on three Planning Accreditation Board site visit teams and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners.

Professor Chakraborty’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Federal Highway Administration, Urban Institute, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, among others. His papers on the long-term impact of regional planning and the role of restrictive zoning on housing foreclosure risk have received national attention. His work on advancing scenario analysis techniques, particularly for land use and transportation planning, has informed the American Planning Association’s Research Knowledgebase on scenario planning, and has been credited as the ‘backbone’ of the scenario framework in FHWA’s “Next Generation Scenario Planning: a Transportation Practitioner’s Guide”.

Prior to his PhD, Professor Chakraborty received a master’s degree in urban planning and policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a bachelor in architecture from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. In the past, he has taught at the Johns Hopkins University and worked for the Chicago Transit Authority.