Print page
Alexander von Hoffman is a Senior Fellow at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. He is the author of House by House, Block by Block: The Rebirth of America’s Urban Neighborhoods (Oxford University Press, paperback ed., 2004), Fuel Lines for the Urban Revival Engine: Neighborhoods, Community Development Corporations, and Financial Intermediaries (Fannie Mae Foundation); Local Attachments: The Making of an American Urban Neighborhood, 1850 to 1920 (Johns Hopkins University Press). He has written many articles on urban history—including “Housing and Planning: A Century of Social Reform and Local Power,” in the Journal of the American Planning Association (Spring 2009)—and essays on housing and neighborhood revitalization for the Atlantic Monthly, Washington Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Boston Globe.
Dr. von Hoffman is currently writing a history of low-income housing policy in the United States, directing a research project on land use regulations in metropolitan Boston, and writing case studies on leadership strategy in nonprofit housing organizations. Dr. von Hoffman’s research has received support from many sources, including the MacArthur, Ford, and Rockefeller foundations. He wrote “Patterns and Process of Sprawl” for the U.S. Geological Survey; “America’s Working Communities and the Impact of Multifamily Housing” and “Promoting Minority Home Ownership” for NeighborWorks America; “Housing Heats Up: Home Building Patterns in Metropolitan America” for the Brookings Institution; and numerous papers for the Joint Center for Housing Studies. Alexander taught for several years as an associate professor of urban planning and design at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and as a faculty member at the Harvard Institute of Affordable Housing in the Professional Education department of the Design School, and is a long-time faculty member of the Department of Continuing Education at Harvard. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University.
