Chair and Associate Professor, Urban and Regional Planning Program, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
Canary Islands Aboard the Crystal Symphony
Richard K. (Dick) Norton is an associate professor in the urban and regional planning program. He serves as chair of the program, as well as faculty coordinator for the land use and environmental planning concentration for the master of urban planning degree. He also holds a joint appointment as associate professor with the University of Michigan’s Program in the Environment in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. He earned his Ph.D. in city and regional planning and his J.D. with honors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also holds master degrees in public policy studies and environmental management from Duke University and an undergraduate degree in biology from the College of Wooster.
Norton teaches and conducts research in the areas of planning law, sustainable development, and land use and environmental planning. He is interested in state and local land management, particularly as it relates to the practice of urban and regional planning and to the issues of sustainability and social justice. He has recently been collaborating with colleagues from UM’s Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering program to study the policy and legal implications of shoreline dynamics along Michigan’s Great Lakes. He has also been working with colleagues at UM and other universities around the country to study a number of issues related to sustainable communities, civic engagement, and the relationships between legislatures and courts in the resolution of zoning-related land use disputes. Norton also serves on the academic organizing committee of the International Academic Association on Planning, Law, and Property Rights. Through that association he has traveled to and studied the planning and legal systems of Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Denmark, Germany, and Canada.
In addition to his teaching and research, Norton contributes actively to public service as a member of the planning law committee of the Michigan Association of Planning (MAP), a state chapter of the American Planning Association (APA). Through those efforts he has taken the lead in drafting proposed legislation for the Michigan Legislature to reform the state’s planning and zoning enabling laws, including significant reforms adopted by the Legislature in 2006 and 2008. He has also written amicus curiae appellate briefs to the Michigan Court of Appeals and the Michigan Supreme Court on behalf of the APA and MAP regarding planning and zoning disputes in the state, and he has presented testimony before Michigan House and Senate committees regarding proposed amendments to state planning and zoning laws.
Prior to completing his graduate studies, Norton worked in professional practice as a consulting environmental policy analyst and planner in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, California. He and his wife Trish have two sons, Jake (14) and Will (12).
