School of Planning, Design and Construction

Biography

Jesus J. Lara, Ph.D., is a Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the School of Planning, Design, and Construction at Michigan State University. Before joining MSU (Michigan State University), he was a full professor at the Knowlton School at Ohio State University in Columbus. Professor Lara’s research and pedagogy are centered on sustainable urban design, Latino Urbanism, community development, and on the sociocultural factors which influence planning and design. He is both co-editor and principal contributor in Remaking Metropolis: Global Challenges of the Urban Landscape (Routledge, 2013). He is also the guest editor and contributor of a special issue of Journal of Urbanism entitled, “International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability in 21st Century American Cities.” Prof. Lara is also the lead curator and contributor with respect to the extensive literature review on Latino Urbanism found in the Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Urbanism. He is further the sole author of Latino Placemaking and Planning: Cultural Resiliency and Strategies for Re-urbanization (University of Arizona Press, 2018), a work which examines the application of the principles of Latino Urbanism in the revitalization of American cities.

Throughout his career, Professor Lara's research has focused on topics related to emerging approaches to planning, design and development that respond to lifestyles, cultural preferences, and economic needs reflected in the built environment. This approach is clear in his current teaching, research, and publications. Prof. Lara has built upon this foundation while narrowing his research into three primary subfields of planning enquiry. 1) Planning and placemaking for emergent immigrant communities, 2) Community development through service-learning education, and 3) Pedagogic approaches to sustainable urban design.

Prof. Lara received a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture from California State Polytechnic University in 1994, a Master’s in both Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture from the University of Southern California in 2001, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Design and Planning from Arizona State University in 2006. He was a Fulbright Fellow at Delft University of Technology and Wageningen University, the Netherlands, between 2003 and 2004, where he conducted research on sustainable urban design practices. Between 2014 and 2015 Prof. Prof. Lara was a visiting professor at the Institute for European Urban Studies (IfEU) at Bauhaus Universität, Weimar, Germany. This work was funded by the German Academic Exchange Program (DAAD).

During the 2022-2023 academic year Prof. Lara was awarded a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award and a German Academic Exchange Program (DAAD) Research Stays for University Academics and Scientist Award for his project "A Place to Call Home: A study of the relationship between social change and the built environment, and the role of immigrant populations in the process sustainable urban design, informality and placemaking." During this time Prof. Lara was hosted at the Institute of Sustainable Urbanism (ISU) at the Technical University of Braunschweig and the Institute of Urban and Regional Planning at the Technical University Berlin where he taught courses on Placemaking/Urban Design and conducted research.

Expertise

Professor Lara’s research in urban planning further examines the effects of social and economic inequity as it relates to ethnicity and how this influences access to social and cultural infrastructure and, consequently, the health and well-being of individuals and communities His teaching, research, and community service emphasize a social consciousness that focuses on enhancing the built environment’s ability to generate social capital. Prof. Lara’s pedagogy addresses global issues in planning and research that is site appropriate and involves student and community involvement. This approach is critical to his community service, research, teaching and scholarly work, and creates an academic agenda that seeks to balance social, cultural and ecological needs in producing a more sustainable urban environment. This perspective is reflected in the research and design topics of his studies, seminars, and course work. His interdisciplinary education and professional experience allow him to draw from related disciplines and work in diverse teams and settings.

As a teacher, Prof. Lara's goal is to influence and inspire students to become reflective, knowledgeable planning and design professionals and ultimately leaders who can effectively engage the communities they serve. His personal philosophy of teaching has been shaped by his life experiences, particularly those during my academic preparation, which have spanned several countries and two continents. Being trained as a landscape architect, urban planner, and environmental designer, his professional orientation embodies a form of transdisciplinary research and practice. Working in diverse settings has led him to an integrative approach to pedagogy, scholarship, and practice. He has learned from individual experiences that two especially crucial elements are necessary for effective design, research, and teaching. The first is direct experience of a wide range of human and natural environments; the second is close observation and cultural immersion in those environments.