Kimberley Kinder

kkinder@umich.edu sites.google.com/umich.edu/kinder

Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning

Teaching Areas

Physical Planning and Design, Global and Comparative Planning, Social Justice and Urban Development

Connect

Office: 2374

Kimberley Kinder is an associate professor in urban and regional planning and the faculty director of the university’s graduate certificate in healthy cities. Her research focuses on cultural landscapes of activism, violence, and resilience. She teaches graduate-level courses on urban theory, research design, and healthy cities. Kinder is the author of four books, including Invisible Exile: The Travel Writing of Displacement (University of Minnesota Press, forthcoming 2025), The Radical Bookstore: Counterspace for Social Movements (Minnesota, 2021), DIY Detroit: Making Do in a City without Services (Minnesota, 2016), and The Politics of Urban Water: Changing Waterscapes in Amsterdam (University of Georgia Press, 2015). She holds both a bachelor of architecture and a master of urban design from Carnegie Mellon University. She also holds a master of science in geography from the University of Oxford and a doctorate in geography from the University of California, Berkeley.

Newsroom

Kinder: Exploring How City Dwellers Adapt the Urban Environment to Their Needs

Kinder Presents New Book “DIY Detroit” at Author’s Forum

Kinder Book Launch: DIY Detroit

Kinder Book Launch: The Politics of Urban Water: Changing Waterscapes in Amsterdam

Projects

Invisible Exile

Kinder has recently completed research for her forthcoming book, Invisible Exile: The Travel Writing of Displacement (University of Minnesota Press, 2025), which analyzes stories of invisible exile—her name for an […]

Healing Journeys

Kinder is currently researching geographies of gender, health, and healing. The integration of health geography into urban planning presents compelling opportunities for city builders and policymakers to become champions of […]