David L. Prytherch
Department of Geography, The Miami University, 216 Shideler Hall, Oxford, Ohio, 45056, U.S.A. Phone: (513) 529-9284. Email: prythedl@muohio.edu
the corner of High and Main Streets, Oxford, OH, the eastern edge of Valencia, Spain
ABOUT ME
I have long been fascinated by two related questions. Why do urban landscapes take the shape they do? And what is the potential of urban planning to produce more a more 'ideal' city? My interest in urbanization and planning has emerged from a life watching landscape transformations in places ranging from my home town New Hope, Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh to Tucson, Arizona, to Valencia, Spain, to Oxford, Ohio. In each I have sought to better understand the tensions between urbanization and the uniqueness of place. For me, geography offers a uniquely integrative way thinking about changing urban landscapes. Planning offers a way to translate a desire for a better city into practice. I have been lucky enough to combine these interests in my research, teaching, and community service.
If pressed to define myself I might be considered a urban, political, and cultural geographer interested in urban planning. But I am a quintessentially generalist geographer (I have worked in environmental protection and even teach physical geography). I have a B.S. in Geography from Penn State University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. To date much of my research has explored how forces of global restructuring (like globalization) are negotiated in and through the planning of local landscapes. I've explored this question in Tucson, where explosive growth threatens a scenic landscape -- the Sonoran Desert -- that lures people to southern Arizona in the first place. In Spain I have studied how planners struggle to navigate -- politically and spatially -- between a competitive entrepreneurialism and a fiercely regional politics of place (a project that has given me the opportunity to work not only in Spanish, but also Catalan-Valenciano). In these efforts I have focused on how tensions between global and local, economic imperatives and cultural identities, are negotiated in and through planned landscapes. In a new research direction, I've begun to explore "superstore sprawl" in the U.S. as the rescaling of the urban landscape as "space of flows," and how this geographical interpretation may (or may not) help planners better comprehend and manage changes in the built landscape.
At Miami my teaching and advising have focused on urban geography and planning. In teach lower division courses like GEO 101 "Global Forces, Local Diversity" and GEO 201 "The Geography of Urban Diversity", as well as GEO 451/551 "Introduction to Urban and Regional Planning", GEO 454/554 "Urban Geography", GEO 459 "Advanced Urban and Regional Planning", and a seminar entitled "Land Use, Law, and the State." These courses encourage students to not only comprehend urban landscape in wider context (economic, political, cultural, environmental), but also engage it through field research and planning projects. I have been an advisor and reader on a range of M.A. research projects, ranging from mineland reclamation in Ohio to sports-related redevelopment in Guangzhou, China, among others. Throughout I've developed and promote a comparative perspective on urban development drawing from my U.S. and European research.
I've been excited recently by my community service in Oxford. I currently sit on the City of Oxford Planning Commission, Community Improvement Corporation, and Parking and Transportation Advisory Board. At Miami University I sit on the Campus Planning Committee and the President's Task Force for Enviromental Sustainability. I try to bring these experiences into the classroom, offering students opportunities to tackle local planning problems and develop fresh ideas for improving the city and campus we inhabit.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Assistant Professor, August 2005 to present
Department of Geography, The Miami University
National Science Foundation International Research Fellow, June to December 2005
Departament de Geografia, Universitat de València
Visiting Assistant Professor, August 2003 to July 2005
Department of Geography, The Miami University
Water Quality Specialist, February 1994 to August 1997
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
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