Howell S. Baum, Ph.D.
Professor
Office: 1229 | Phone: 301-405-6792 | Email
Ph.D. City and Regional Planning, 1974, University of California, Berkeley; MCP City Planning, 1971, University of California, Berkeley; M.A. American Civilization, 1968, University of Pennsylvania; B.A., Political Science, 1967, University of California, Berkeley.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
- Planning theory and planning practice
- Liberalism: its influence on public policy, its failure in comprehending race
- American race relations and racial reconciliation
- History of Baltimore school desegregation
- School reform
- Community organizing and community planning
- Organizational behavior and bureaucracy
- Psychology of planning and decision making
- Evil: why people do it, how liberal rationalism fails to comprehend and deal with it
COURSES TAUGHT
- Community Social Planning - URSP 673
- Advanced Planning Theory - URSP 804
- New Issues in Community - URSP 688X
- Diversity and the City - URSP 372
CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS
Professor Baum has completed a historical study of Baltimore school desegregation entitled Brown in Baltimore: School Desegregation and the Limits of Liberalism. The book analyzes how liberalism hinders knowing and talking about race and limits possibilities of racial integration. He has been studying the psychological dynamics of race relations. He is beginning research on planning and the problem of evil, looking at how conventional views of rationality fail to understand and deal with normal human destructive impulses.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Books
- Planners and Public Expectations, Cambridge: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1983.
- The Invisible Bureaucracy: The Unconscious in Organizational Problem Solving, New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
- Organizational Membership: Personal Development in the Workplace, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.
- The Human Costs of a Management Failure: Organizational Downsizing at General Hospital, with Seth Allcorn, Michael Diamond, and Howard Stein, Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 1996.
- The Organization of Hope; Communities Planning Themselves, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.
- Community Action for School Reform, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003.
- Brown in Baltimore: School Desegregation and the Limits of Liberalism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010.
Articles
- "Community and Consensus: Reality and Fantasy in Planning," Journal of Planning Education and Research, 13, 4 (1994), 251-262.
- “Community Organizations Recruiting Community Participation: Predicaments in Planning,” Journal of Planning Education and Research, 18, 3 (March, 1999), 187-199.
- ”Education and the Empowerment Zone: Ad Hoc Development of an Inter-Organizational Domain,” Journal of Urban Affairs, 21, 3 (1999), 289-307.
- “Fantasies and Realities of University-Community Partnerships,” Journal of Planning Education and Research, 20, 2 (Winter, 2000), 234-246.
- “How Should We Evaluate Community Initiatives?” Journal of the American Planning Association, 67, 2 (Spring, 2001), 147-158.
- “Why School Systems Resist Reform: A Psychoanalytic Perspective,” Human Relations, 55, 2 (Winter, 2002), 1-26.