Lecture: Catherine Tumber

Catherine Tumber is a Historian and journalist and visiting scholar at Penn Institute for Urban Research, as well as a Senior Research Associate with the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University’s School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, a Fellow of the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth's Gateway Cities Innovation Institute, and a former Research Affiliate with the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning’s Community Innovators Lab.

Tumber wrote an acclaimed book titled, "Small, Gritty and Green" about small industrial cities and their role in a low-carbon future. Tumber, who has spent much of her life in Rust Belt cities, traveled to twenty-five cities in the Northeast and Midwest–from Buffalo to Peoria to Detroit to Rochester–interviewing planners, city officials, and activists, and weaving their stories into this exploration of small-scale urbanism. Smaller cities can be a critical part of a sustainable future and a productive green economy. Her areas of expertise include low-carbon economic development, metropolitan land use and governance, sustainable urbanism and U.S. social and cultural history.