Campanella, Thomas J.

PERSONAL:

Education: State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, B.S.; Cornell University, M.L.A.; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Nanjing, China; Hillsborough, NC. Office—Department of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill, New East Bldg., Campus Box #3140, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3140. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill, assistant professor, 2002—. Visiting professor, Nanjing University School of Architecture; faculty fellow, Institute for the Arts and Humanities, University of North Carolina. Consultant on urban design and planning for projects in China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, and the United States.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fulbright fellowship, 1999; Republic of Shade: New England and the American Elm was named one of the ten best nonfiction titles by the Boston Globe, 2003; Spiro Kostof Book Award, Society of Architectural Historians, for Republic of Shade; John Reps and de Montequin Prizes, Society for American City and Regional Planning History; Outstanding Article Award, Council of Educators in Landsacpe Architecture.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

Cities from the Sky: An Aerial Portrait of America, Princteon Architectural Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Republic of Shade: New England and the American Elm, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2003.

(Editor, with Lawrence J. Vale) The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover from Disaster, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to Metropolis, Salon, Journal of the American Planning Association, Architectural Record, Places, and Wired.

SIDELIGHTS:

Thomas J. Campanella's first book, Cities from the Sky: An Aerial Portrait of America, is a collection of more than one hundred aerial photographs of various American cities in the years between 1921 and 1950. Campanella's comments on the photographs are "brief, yet fascinating," Darren Ingram stated in Best Books. The photographs, and Campanella's text, combine to produce "a book to pore over again and again," stated Ray Olson in Booklist.

The rise and fall of the American elm tree was the subject of the author's next book, Republic of Shade: New England and the American Elm. Campanella explains the cultural significance the trees had in New England towns in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The trees were numerous in the region, and the author "does a wonderful job pinpointing many of the meanings early America found in the elm," according to Douglas Jones in Books & Culture. Because they were native to America, they were seen as important in making a distinction between the new world and the old. They are fast-growing trees, and so they were valued for the ability to make a new town look mature and established within a matter of years. The trees were planted along sidewalks to give shade and beauty to streets, but modern improvements, such as unyielding pavement, caused them to weaken. A massive storm in 1938 caused huge numbers of the trees to fall, and the fallen trees became an ideal home for a beetle that spreads the fungus responsible for Dutch elm disease, which had spread to the United States from Europe. Despite government efforts to save them, the trees vanished almost completely within one generation. The author uses photographs and local histories to conjure up a picture of the devastation caused by the Dutch elm disease, and his book is a "fascinating account," of the tree's history, according to Ilse Heidmann in the Library Journal.

Campanella and coeditor Lawrence J. Vale presented a number of case studies on cities that have endured natural or man-made disasters in The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover from Disaster. The cases include the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on New York City, the British attack on Washington, DC, in 1814, the Mexico City earthquake of 1985, and the Los Angeles riots of 1992. Some of the studies focus on the political aspects of reconstruction, and these are "most likely to have specific professional interest for planners," commented Harold Henderson in Planning. Commenting in the Architectural Review, Timothy Brittain-Catlin recommended the book, noting in particular that the editors' contributions "raise some valuable ideas."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Architectural Review, April, 2005, Timothy Brittain-Catlin, review of The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover from Disaster, p. 95.

Books & Culture, Douglas Jones, review of Republic of Shade: New England and the American Elm, p. 38.

Booklist, January 1, 2002, Ray Olson, review of Cities from the Sky: An Aerial Portrait of America, p. 789.

Library Journal, Ilse Heidmann, review of Republic of Shade, p. 149.

M2 Best Books, January 13, 2003, Darren Ingram, review of Cities from the Sky.

Planning, August-September, 2005, Harold Henderson, review of The Resilient City, p. 52.

Publishers Weekly, December 3, 2001, review of Cities from the Sky, p. 54.

ONLINE

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Department of City and Regional Planning Web site,http://www.planning.unc.edu/ (March 23, 2006), biographical information about Thomas J. Campanella.