William Lucy

Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning

William Lucy is the Lawrence Lewis Jr. Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning, School of Architecture, University of Virginia. He is the author of Foreclosing the Dream: How America’s Housing Crisis Is Reshaping Our Cities and Suburbs, Planners Press, 2010, which won the Choice Award of the American Library Association. He co-authored, with David Phillips, Tomorrow’s Cities Tomorrow’s Suburbs, Planners Press, 2006, and Confronting Suburban Decline: Strategic Planning for Metropolitan Renewal, Island Press, 2000. His research about danger in exurbia, comparing dangers from traffic fatalities and homicides by strangers, appeared in the American Journal of Public Health, 2003, and in Tomorrow’s Cities Tomorrow’s Suburbs.

He has been a chief staff policy adviser to city mayors and a citizen advisor to elected officials. Some of those experiences are discussed in Close to Power: Setting Priorities with Elected Officials, Planners Press, 1988. 

In Charlottesville, he has been chair of the Charlottesville Social Development Commission, member and chair of the Charlottesville Planning Commission, and President of the Town Reversion Committee. He has served twice as chair of the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning and three times as associate dean for policy in the School of Architecture of the University of Virginia.

The National Building Museum provides biographies of speakers, program participants, and exhibition subjects. Learn more about our programs and lectures.