Kenneth Reardon

Paul and Linda Davidoff: Tireless Advocates for the Just City At a time when the income, wealth, and influence disparities within American cities are growing, the lives and careers of Paul and Linda Davidoff, two UPENN-educated urban planners can serve to inspire those committed to building what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described as “The Beloved Community”.

Building upon Paul’s 1965 article “Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning” which challenged planners to work with marginalized groups whose voices were typically overlooked within public planning processes to produce high quality plans that articulated their communities’ future hopes and aspirations, they launched the “advocacy planning” movement in the United States and Europe. This movement sought to democratize planning by ensuring that every interest group affected by the proposals of centralized planning agencies would have the opportunity to present their vision for the future before local planning bodies. They believed the quality and fairness of urban planning would significantly improve through the presentation and debate of alternative plans. In addition to their efforts to expand the planning commons, Paul and Linda undertook a twenty-year campaign to provide poor and working-class Americans with access to the educational, employment, and housing opportunities being generated in the rapidly growing Post WWII suburbs by dismantling exclusionary zoning ordinances and restricting building codes. Between 1969 and 1984, Paul and Linda Davidoff initiated, supported, or participated in nearly thirty lawsuits that challenged exclusionary zoning on Constitutional grounds through the non-profit Civil Rights and action research organization they co-founded - The Suburban Action Institute. In addition to these cases, they also filed complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission challenging the relocation plans of corporations that were moving from New York City to income and race restricted suburbs.

For twenty years following Paul’s death, Linda continued to promote more equitable, sustainable, and democratic cities as a senior executive with Planned Parenthood of America, Human Serve, NYC Parks Council, Citizen Union, and New York State League of Conservation Voters. Among her many accomplishments, as an urban reformer, was the role she played in overseeing the passage of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the creation of the “Civil Alternative” to Donald Trump’s Television City Proposal for Manhattan’s Penn Railyard that expanded access to NYC’s waterfront while adding thousands of affordable housing units in Manhattan.

Ken Reardon is a native New Yorker who received his Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University. Ken who recently retired as a Professor and Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Community Development at the University of Massachusetts Boston, has held tenured faculty positions in urban planning at the: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Cornell University, University of Memphis. His research focuses on resident-led planning in severely distressed communities. His most recent book, Building Bridges: Community/University Partnerships in East St. Louis, was published by Social Policy Press in 2019. He is currently working on a joint biography of Paul and Linda Davidoff, two Civil Rights-era advocacy planners, known for their efforts to dismantle exclusionary zoning in America’s suburbs and to promote racially/socially integrated and environmentally sustainable communities through participatory planning.