As an urban planner, Dr. Malo André Hutson believes that harmony and collaboration between entities — be they on the local, state, national, or even global level — are needed if we are to tackle the broader issues of our time.
Such issues include food systems, water use, energy use, and land use, says Hutson, an expert in climate resilience, environmental justice, and urban health. But once agreements are reached, there lies opportunity.
“We need an articulated strategy that is really going to address these broader issues that we’re all dealing with,” suggests Hutson, dean and Edward E. Elson Professor at the University of Virginia’s (UVA) School of Architecture. “And so, if you go to the local level, absolutely there should be local control. ... But we can’t all be doing our own thing and not think about what is the broader strategy… So that to me is the big challenge and that’s also the big opportunity.”
Dr. Malo André Hutson
“It’s really the tens of thousands of small to medium-sized cities around the world that need to do this. And unfortunately, they are not in harmony with one another,” Hutson says. “So, let’s take the U.S. for example. You’ll have major metropolitan areas where one region or county is expanding their highway system and another county literally next door is investing [in] their public transit. And what we need is an articulated strategy at the local level to think about how we go about our land use.”
Hutson — who says he’s been in this field for roughly 20 years — describes his work as being at the intersection of the built environment, health equity, and climate sustainability. He is in his second year as a UVA dean. Before UVA, he served at Columbia University, where he was a tenured professor in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation; a director of the urban planning Ph.D. program; a director of the Urban Community and Health Equity Lab; and an executive committee member of the Earth Institute.
Hutson formerly held roles at the University of California at Berkeley, where he was associate director of the Institute of Urban and Regional Planning (IURD) and chair of the urban studies program. He holds a Ph.D. in urban and regional planning from MIT, a Master of City Planning degree in regional and economic development from UC Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology also from UC Berkeley.
