Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy and Faculty Director, Master of Urban and Regional Planning Program
Ph.D. University of Southern California
Email: agarde@uci.edu
212D Social Ecology I
Department:
Urban Planning and Public Policy
Research Interests:
Urban Planning, Urban Design, Land Use Policy, and Sustainable Urbanism: My Recent Research is on Housing Affordability Crisis and Zoning Reform
Summary of Research Interests:
My scholarship is in urban planning and urban design with a particular focus on spatial/physical, environmental, and social problems related to the built environment. I study innovations in urban design, their impact on urban form, and the implications for public policy. My research has addressed the following types of questions: how might the planning and design of built environment contribute to making our cities more sustainable, equitable, and livable? What is the future of urbanism? What are the implications of land use change in metropolitan regions in which municipalities compete with each other for tax revenues and reflect Tiebout sorting? What are the regulatory and non-regulatory barriers to affordable housing and how might cities address the need for affordable housing? How do form-based codes differ from conventional zoning codes in facilitating sustainability? What are the strengths and the limitations of sustainability rating systems? How might the planning and design of neighborhood-scale LEED-ND projects contribute to sustainable design and development? My current research focuses on zoning reform underway in the United States. My research is supported by grants and fellowships from the Haynes Foundation, Los Angeles, CA, the California Department of Transportation (CALTRANS), and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
I have an undergraduate professional degree in architecture and previously worked and practiced as a registered architect (licensed to practice) on small-scale as well as large-scale projects in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. Most of these projects started from doodles and conceptual sketches on drawing boards and ended as built projects. This work offered me a unique insight into how projects are designed and how they get built, what does it take to design and build large-scale projects that go through many revisions over time. After working as an architect for seven years, I decided to study urban and regional planning and came to Los Angeles to study at University of Southern California. My PhD is in urban planning. Now I do empirical research and use qualitative and quantitative research methods in my work. Before joining the University of California, Irvine (UCI), I was Assistant Professor in the Department of Planning at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, for one year. Previously, while also working on my Ph.D. dissertation, I taught courses in urban planning and urban design at the University at Buffalo, SUNY Buffalo, New York; Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa; University of Southern California, Los Angeles; California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, California (that is, CalPoly Pomona). At UCI, I teach a variety of courses in urban planning, urban design, urban studies, as well as campus-wide writing courses that include Naturalistic Field Research and Field Study Writing Seminar.