About 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.
Education
- PhD, University of Maryland, College Park (2007)
- Master of Urban Planning and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago (2003)
- Bachelor of Architecture, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
Research and publications
Ongoing and upcoming research
Ongoing and Upcoming Research
- Closing the Housing Opportunity Gap: Promises and limits of High-Density Zoning
- An IDOT supported project to develop Policies and Design Guidelines for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, (with Co-PI Lindsay Braun; PhD student Ouafa Benkraouda) 2019-2021
- A multi-institutional NSF award under the Convergence Accelerator program for creating an open knowledge network for civic infrastructure systems, (with PI Nora El-Gohari, PhD student Wataru Morioka, and others) 2019-2021
- A Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and Consortium for Scenario Planning supported project to develop a scenario planning toolkit for shrinking regions (with Emma Walters) 2020-2021
Selected publications
Sherman, S. and Chakraborty, A. (Forthcoming) Beyond Plans: Scenario Planning as a Tool for Regional Capacity Building, Journal of the American Planning Association, https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2021.2004913
Knaap, G. J., Lewis, R., and Chakraborty, A. editors (forthcoming), A Handbook on Smart Growth, Edgar Elgar Press.
Chakraborty, Arnab, and Xijing Li. "Exploring the heterogeneity in relationship between heat exposure and land development in Mumbai, India: a framework to address urban vulnerability in developing megacities." Journal of Environmental Planning and Management (2021): 1-17.
Chakraborty, A. (2020), Comment on Death of Single-Family and It’s Time to End Single-Family Zoning: Calls to end all single-family zoning need more scrutiny, Journal of the American Planning Association
Knaap, G. J., Lewis, R., Chakraborty, A. and June-Freisen, K. (2020), Smart Growth: An Annotated Bibliography, Oxford University Press
Wilson, B., & Chakraborty, A. (2019a). Mapping vulnerability to extreme heat events: Lessons from metropolitan Chicago. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 62(6), 1065–1088. https://doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2018.1462475
Teaching and advising
Classes taught
- UP 312: Communication for Planners
- UP 546: Land Use Policy and Planning
- UP 443: Scenarios, Plans, and Future Cities (occasional, online)
Students advised
Current Doctoral Students:
- Ouafa Benkraouda, Regional Planning (chair)
- James Allen, Regional Planning (committee member)
- Tanvir Hossain (committee member)
Current MUP Capstone Advisees:
- Shanay Patel
- Elli Dastrup
- Tyler Huggins
Previous Doctoral Students:
- Andrew McMillan, PhD, Regional Planning (Chair, 2017)
- Dustin Allred, PhD, Regional Planning (Chair, 2013, currently Lecturer of Urban and Regional Planning, UIUC)
Previous MUP Capstone Advisees (selected)
- Ximin Piao, 2021
- Hufan Jiang, 2020
- Brent Panozzo, 2019
- Katherine Trotter, 2019
- Rojan Joseph, 2018
- Richa Singh, 2018
- Sampson Ansah, 2018
- Sharaj Sundararaman, 2018
- Matthew Dwight, 2017
- Md Muntasir, 2017
- Ilya Chistyakov, 2017
- Vaneeta Chintamaneni, 2014
- Brett Barkley, 2014
- Myles Alexander, 2011
- Charles Allen, 2010
- Laura Curvey, 2010
- John Campbell, 2010
- Melena Hessel, 2010
- Brian Sheehan, 2009