Joan Fitzgerald
Director, Law, Policy and Society Program
Professor of Law, Policy and Society
Ph.D. Pennsylvania State University
Office: 205 Holmes Hall
Telephone: (617) 373-3644
Email: jo.fitzgerald@neu.edu
Specializations
Urban economic development
Urban sustainability planning
Workforce Development
Green economic development
Joan Fitzgerald is the Director of the Law, Policy and Society Program at Northeastern University. Previously, Fitzgerald taught urban policy and public affairs at the New School University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Ohio State University.
I am currently working on a research project called Emerald Cities that examines how U.S. and Western European cities are addressing the interrelated issues of global warming, energy dependence and opportunities for green economic development. This potential includes building new technology-based industry clusters, improving the efficiency of production in existing manufacturing processes, and creating well-paying green jobs in construction, manufacturing, and entirely new advanced technology sectors.
Using a set of 24 cities, I am focusing on questions concerning the characteristics and distribution of jobs, on investment needed to catalyze development, on the policies and programs needed, and the politics of the planning process. The Emerald Cities project will maintain a web site through which we will disseminate policy briefs, reports, commentary and other features. The project will also culminate in a book, Emerald Cities.
This project builds on my co-authored 2002 economic development book, Economic Revitalization: Strategies and Cases for City and Suburb (see below), which examines how traditional economic development strategies can be used to promote more sustainable and equitable development. It also integrates questions raised in my second book, Moving Up in the New Economy (2006), which focuses on strategies for helping low-wage workers advance into better paying positions through skills upgrading.
Building on this work, in November, 2006 and January, 2007, I published two articles in The American Prospect that explored the link between policies to promote creation of good jobs and the green economy, focusing on green building and renewable energy. Links to these articles:
Help Wanted---Green
BOOKS
Fitzgerald's new book Moving up in the New Economy,
examines the proliferation of low-wage jobs in strong economic times and the effectiveness of labor market intermediaries in securing career advancement for workers. The book will be published in the fall of 2005 by Cornell University Press. It is a Century Foundation book. Funding for the research was provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the Century Foundation. "Moving up in the New Economy" at Amazon
She published Economic Revitalization: Cases and Strategies for City and Suburb (Sage) with Nancey Green Leigh in 2002. The book explores how social justice and environmental sustainability can be incorporated into urban and suburban economic development strategies.
"Economic Revitalization" at Amazon
Joan Fitzgerald VitaSELECTED PUBLICATIONS
The Boston Globe, March 7, 2006.
The American Prospect, 2004.(with Daphne Hunt)
Moving the Workforce Intermediary Agenda Forward
Economic Development Quarterly, 2004.
The Rebirth of Older Industrial Cities: Exciting Opportunities for Private Sector Investment.
� Center for Urban and Regional Policy, 2004.
Pathways to Good Jobs Can Career Ladders Solve the low-wage Problem?
The American Prospect, 2003.
Rentention Deficit Disorder, 2002
Right-to-work Laws and Economic Development in Oklahoma
Economic Policy Institute website, August 2001.
Closing the Nation's Reading Gap
The Boston Globe, April 12, 2001.
The American Prospect, 2001. with Virginia Carlson
Salvaging an evaluation form the swampy lowland
with Janice Matthews Rasheed, Evaluation and Program Planning, 1998.
Economic Development Quarterly, 1998.
Principles and Practices for Creating Systems Reform in Urban Workforce
Development Great Cities Institute. College of Urban Planning, May 1999.
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