Faculty Directory

Joe Grengs is an Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on transportation planning and how metropolitan urban form contributes to uneven economic development and social disparities. His work argues for improving transportation systems by shifting from mobility to accessibility as the primary criterion by which transportation policy is evaluated. His accessibility research includes: showing how the concept of accessibility offers a more effective evaluation tool for advancing social justice than current planning practices; developing a method for making intermetropolitan comparisons of accessibility to offer a basis for advancing policy reform; and explaining why accessibility is experienced differently by race, ethnicity, sex, age, and income.

Recent publications include "Job Accessibility and the Modal Mismatch in Detroit" published by the Journal of Transport Geography (2010), and "Intermetropolitan Comparison of Transportation Accessibility: Sorting Out Mobility and Proximity in San Francisco and Washington, DC." published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research (2010).

Grengs is a certified planner and a registered professional engineer with work experience in both the private and public sectors and in international settings. He holds a bachelor's of civil engineering and master's of urban and regional planning degrees from the University of Minnesota, and a PhD in city and regional planning from Cornell University.