The Society for American City and Regional Planning History (SACRPH)

What Is SACRPH?
The Society for American City and Regional Planning History (SACRPH) is an interdisciplinary professional organization dedicated to promoting greater understanding of the history of people's efforts to shape the landscapes of cities and metropolitan regions. Today, the organization's members include nearly 300 planners, scholars, and other urbanists from around the world.

SACRPH's History
SACRPH was founded in March 1986, when Laurence Gerckens, FAICP, convened a group of practicing planners, historians, and other scholars in Columbus, Ohio. Together, they agreed that the study of Americans' efforts to plan their metropolitan landscapes called for a broad, interdisciplinary approach and for a constant dialogue between scholar and practitioner, past and present.

Since that first meeting, SACRPH has met nine additional times. Today its biennial conferences, set in cities across North America, draw people from across the country and around the world to learn from one another, present new research, and see an American city from the inside.

Biennial Meeting
SACRPH's members insist that their meetings, like their group, are unique. Nowhere else do they find the same eclectic mix of people sharing a basic interest in the metropolitan landscape. Registrants at the group's 2003 meeting in St. Louis gathered for more than 40 sessions, covering topics ranging from historic preservation to public housing to the economy of the Mississippi Delta. Keynote talks, a regular highlight of the meeting, also reflected the group's diversity. These included:

Yale University's Alexander Garvin, speaking of his work at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation overseeing the design competition for the World Trade Center site.

George Lipsitz, Professor of American Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who in a talk entitled "Learning from St. Louis," focused on that city's colorful social history to emphasize the diverse human experiences that underlie — and at times frustrate — the efforts of planning professionals.

Participants also enjoyed bus and walking tours through the city, shopped for books in the exhibition hall, or just caught up over drinks and meals.

SACRPH will meet October 2005 in Miami, Florida. In the fall of 2007 the group will meet in Portland, Maine.

Journal of Planning History
In 2002, the Society realized another of its original goals when it inaugurated the Journal of Planning History under the editorship of Christopher Silver, AICP, Chair of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. This refereed quarterly journal, delivered free of charge to members, provides scholars and planners alike with a venue for scholarly research into the past and prospect of our efforts to plan the built environment. Articles in the May 2004 issue, for example, covered topics ranging from residential segregation ordinances in early 20th century Atlanta to the Cold War communal ideals expressed in Victor Gruen's shopping malls.

Membership
SACRPH members receive a semiannual newsletter, the quarterly Journal of Planning History, and a 20 percent discount on the biennial conference fee. Full-time students and retirees join at discounted rates. Corporate and institutional memberships, which come with increased benefits, are also available. Click here for more information on membership.

To Learn More
For more information about SACRPH, or to become a member, visit the website: www.urban.uiuc.edu/sacrph