Yonn Dierwechter, Ph.D.

Yonn Dierwechter is Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Washington, Tacoma. His research focuses on the emerging geographies of comparative metropolitan planning practices; state/space relationships; and the links between urban growth management/smartness, sustainability policies, internationalism, and comparative city-regionalism. As an urban political geographer with a focus on spatial planning systems, he typically explores how various forms of power shape urban and regional spaces, drawing on work in critical urban geography, planning studies, historical institutionalism, and sustainability studies.

Yonn’s major books include: ‘The Urbanization of Green Internationalism’ (2019, Palgrave); ‘Smart transitions in city-regionalism: territory, politics, and the quest for competitiveness and sustainability’ (2018, Routledge, with Tassilo Herrschel); ‘Urban sustainability through smart growth: planning, intercurrence and the geographies of regional development across Greater Seattle’ (Springer, 2017); and ‘Urban growth management and its discontents: promises, practices, and geopolitics in US city-regions’ (Palgrave, 2008).

He has published extensively in journals such as Geoforum, Urban Geography, Urban Studies, The Journal of Urbanism, Environment and Planning A, The Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, Professional Geographer, Space and Polity, Territorio, Social Science Journal, Regions, and International Development Planning Review, among many other scholarly outlets.

Before his academic career, Yonn taught for a year at a teacher-training university in China, worked for several years as a community development planner in early post-apartheid South Africa, and served as a state legislative policy analyst in Indiana. Since joining the faculty in September 2001, he has consulted extensively with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris on projects in Germany, Italy, Australia, France, and South Africa. He has also served locally on multiple civic bodies for the City of Tacoma, Metro Parks, and University Place.

In the classroom, Yonn normally teaches a series of courses in both the Urban Studies and Sustainable Urban Development majors, including Cities in World Development, Land Use Planning, Understanding Metropolitan Regions, and Green Internationalism, and is also responsible for teaching Planning Theory and Practice in the graduate program in Community Planning. He is particularly interested in asking his students to consider cities and urban issues from a comparative global perspective, drawing on key debates and insights from international history, world regional geography, and spatial planning systems to contextualize and make sense of US experiences in a broader analytical framework.

Yonn holds a master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University and a PhD in Geography from the London School of Economics. He is the 2014 winner of UWT’s Distinguished Research Award and was also awarded a Canada Fulbright Research Chair at the University of Calgary in 2019, where he worked on the social and environmental implications of “smart cities” with members of the Smart Cities Research Group. In addition to his work on smart cities in Canada, his current research is focused on two major book projects. The first is a co-edited book based on a Regional Studies Association research network entitled “Smart city-regional governance for sustainability.” The second major project is a monograph on the recent policy history and future prospects of urban climate action in Seattle for a new book series published by Anthem Press.