Robert W. Lake , Ph.D.

Robert Lake


Professor Emeritus
B.A., Antioch College; M.A., Ph.D., University of Chicago
Contact
Research Interests
  • Community-based planning
  • Planning and social theory
  • Locational conflict and social movements
  • Environmental politics
  • Urban and political geography


Robert Lake is Professor Emeritus of urban planning and policy development and a member of the Graduate Faculties in the Department of Geography and the Bloustein School. He holds a Ph.D. in urban geography from the University of Chicago. Dr. Lake was Graduate Director and Director of the Doctoral Program in Planning and Public Policy (2009-2015); Acting Director (1997-1998) and Associate Director (1998-2000) of the Center for Urban Policy Research; Co-Director of the Rutgers Community Outreach Partnership Center (1998-2005); and Director of the CUPR Press (1989-2011). Dr. Lake has conducted research on a broad array of planning and public policy issues in the fields of housing, community development, and environmental policy. His current research focuses on community-based planning, urban entrepreneurialism, environmental justice, and the role of social theory in the production of knowledge in the social sciences. He is the author or editor of seven books and has published numerous articles in scholarly and professional journals. His research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Economic Development Administration, United States Information Agency, National Science Foundation, U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, National Institutes of Mental Health, state and local governments, and private foundations.

Dr. Lake retired from the Bloustein School in June, 2020.

Complete Curriculum Vitae (C.V.)

View all course offerings and related syllabi
Graduate Courses
  • Planning, Public Policy, and Social Theory
  • Advanced Scholarly Research
  • History and Theory of Planning
  • Urban Economy and Spatial Patterns
  • Social Justice in Planning and Public Policy

Recent Publications

Books

  • 2020: Wills, Jane and Lake, Robert W., eds.  The Power of Pragmatism: Knowledge Production and Social Inquiry. Manchester University Press.
  • 2019: Ghertner, D. Asher and Lake, Robert W., eds. Land Fictions: The Commodification of Land in City and Country. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
  • 2019: Wills, Jane and Lake, Robert W., eds. The Power of Pragmatism: Research and Knowledge Production in the Social Sciences. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Book Chapters

  • 2019: Lake, Robert W. “Where Materiality Meets Subjectivity: Locating the Political in the Contested Fiction of Urban Land.” In D. Asher Ghertner and Robert W. Lake, eds. Land Fictions: The Commodification of Land in City and Country. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
  • 2019: Ghertner, D. Asher and Lake, Robert W., “Introduction: Land Fictions and the Politics of Commodification in City and Country.” In D. Asher Ghertner and Robert W. Lake, eds. Land Fictions: The Commodification of Land in City and Country. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
  • 2019: Wills, Jane and Lake, Robert W., “Introduction: The Power of Pragmatism.” In Jane Wills and Robert W. Lake, eds. The Power of Pragmatism: Knowledge Production and Social Inquiry. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  • 2019: Lake, Robert W. “The Quest for Uncertainty: Pragmatism Between Rationalism and Sentimentality.” In Jane Wills and Robert W. Lake, eds., The Power of Pragmatism: Knowledge Production and Social Inquiry. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
  • 2016: Lake, Robert. 2016. “The Subordination of Urban Policy in the Time of Financialization. In James DeFilippis, ed., Urban Policy in the Time of Obama. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 45-64.

Articles in Refereed Journals

  • 2018: Lake, Robert W. “Locating the Social in Social Justice,” Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 108,2: 337-345.
  • 2017: Lake, Robert W. “Urban Geography Plenary Lecture: On Poetry, Pragmatism, and the Urban Possibility of Creative Democracy,” Urban Geography, 38,4: 479-494.
  • 2017: Lake, Robert W. “For Creative Democracy.” Urban Geography, 38,4: 507-511.
  • 2017: Lake, Robert W. “Planning Urban Geographies and the Contested Rationalities of City-Making.” Urban Geography, 38,2: 239-242. DOI:10.1080/02723638.2016.1206715
  • 2017: Lake, Robert W. “Big Data, Urban Governance, and the Ontological Politics of Hyper-Individualism.” Big Data and Society, 4,1: 1-10. DOI:10.1177/2053951716682537
  • 2016: Lake, Robert W. “Justice as Subject and Object of Planning.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 40,6: 1206-1221.
  • 2015: Lake, Robert W. “The Financialization of Urban Policy in the Age of Obama.” Journal of Urban Affairs, 37,1: 75-78.

Reviews

  • 2018: Review of Mark Doussard, Degraded Work: The Struggle at the Bottom of the Labor Market, in AAG Review of Books 6,1: 50-58.
  • 2016: Review of Ananya Roy and Emma Crane, Territories of Poverty, in Progress in Human Geography, 41,3: 395-402.