Faculty Directory

June Manning Thomas, Ph.D., is Centennial Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.

In 2003 she was inducted as a Fellow in the American Institute of Certified Planners. She is Vice-President/President-elect of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (2011-13).

Her books include Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit (1997), Planning Progress: Lessons from Shoghi Effendi (1999), the co-edited (with Marsha Ritzdorf) Urban Planning and the African American Community: In the Shadows (1997), and the co-authored Detroit: Race and Uneven Development (1987). She has published numerous articles and book chapters as well. Thomas has a forthcoming book with co-editor Margaret Dewar on The City After Abandonment (University of Pennsylvania Press), in addition to the book, Mapping Detroit, with co-editor H. C. Bekkering.

Thomas writes about diversification of the planning profession, planning history, and social equity in neighborhoods and urban revitalization. Recent research assessed the role of minority-race planners in the quest for a just city, explored the relationship between the concept of social equity and the civil rights movement, and examined the land-use reactions of community organizations to vacant land in Detroit.

She is the recipient of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning 1999 Paul Davidoff Award for her book Redevelopment and Race. She previously was a professor at Michigan State University, where she developed statewide initiatives to link urban planning services on campus with community development needs in Michigan cities. She and her husband are active members of the Bahá'í Faith, a belief system which has fueled their professional interests in promoting racial and international unity.