Christopher Silver, Ph.D., FAICP

Professor and Dean, College of Design, Construction and Planning, University of Florida

Christopher Silver, Ph.D., FAICP is professor and dean of the University of Florida’s College of Design, Construction and Planning. He came to University of Florida in the fall of 2006 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he was professor and head of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning for eight years.

Prior to that, Dr. Silver served for three years as urban development advisor to Indonesia under a U.S. Agency for International Development project. He also has held academic appointments at Virginia Commonwealth University. His international experience in Indonesia began in 1989 with a Fulbright Senior Lectureship at the University of Indonesia, and in 1992 and 2004 at the Institute of Technology Bandung. He holds a Bachelors degree from St. Lawrence University, a Masters and Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from Virginia Commonwealth University. He has spent 18 years researching urban development and decentralization in that country, as well as developing and implementing faculty and student exchange programs. Dr. Silver’s scholarship includes $2 million in funded research projects, including several large capacity building university linkages in Indonesia.

He is author or co-author of five books, including  Planning the Megacity:  Jakarta, Indonesia in the Twentieth Century (Routledge, 2008) and Planning and Decentralization:  Contested Spaces for Action in the Global South, with V. Beard and F, Miraftab (Taylor and Francis, 2008) as well as numerous articles, chapters, book reviews, paper presentations and speeches. He has held major positions in several national professional organizations, previously as co-editor of the Journal of the American Planning Association, president of the Society for American City and Regional Planning and most recently as president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, chair of the International Division of the American Planning Association and current editor of the Journal of Planning History. He was inducted in 2008 into the College of Fellows, American Institute of Certified Planners.   

He is recipient of The Laurence Gerckens Priaze for 2007 for Sustained Excellence in the Teaching of Planning History. His teaching includes advanced courses in international development planning, participatory planning, strategic planning and community development. His prior project work with the U.S. Agency for International Development included three years as resident consultant on the Municipal Finance for Urban Environmental Infrastructure Project, 1995-1997 in Jakarta. In addition, he has prepared studies under the CLEAN-Urban Project, and in collaboration with colleagues at the Institute of Technology Bandung, developed a model of participatory planning and community stakeholder development for decentralization in Jatinangor (Sumedang) and Majalaya (Bandung) from 1999 through 2004. He currently serves as Secretary General of International Planning History Society.

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