Joan Fitzgerald

Joan Fitzgerald
Professor of Law and Public Policy
Expertise: Urban and State Economic Development, Urban Sustainability and Climate Change Policy and Planning, Workforce Development.
Courses Taught: Cities, Sustainability and Climate Change; Urban Economic Development; Climate Change Policy

Contact: jo.fitzgerald@neu.edu, 617.373.3644, 337 Holmes Hall

• Joan Fitzgerald CV

Specializations

• Urban economic development
• Urban sustainability planning
• Workforce Development
• Green economic development

Joan Fitzgerald is the Director of the Law and Public Policy 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.

Professor Fitzgerald is the author of Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development (Oxford Univ. Press, 2010), which 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.

Emerald Cities builds on her 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 her second book, Moving Up in the New Economy (Cornell Univ. Press, 2006), which focuses on strategies for helping low-wage workers advance into better paying positions through skills upgrading.

She is currently working on two articles and an edited book series. The first article examines the relative influence of EU mandates and programs, national policy and local planning practices on the success of climate change planning in Stockholm and Malmö and discusses the relevance of the Swedish experience for US cities. The second article analyzes business involvement in urban climate change initiatives in US and European cities.

Fitzgerald and Ph.D. candidate M.J. Motta are editing a three-volume set, Cities and Sustainability, for the Routledge Critical Concepts in Urban Studies series.

She is organizing the Emerald Cities Network, an organization of universities supporting their cities in pursuing climate change initiatives and policies.

Books

Professor Fitzgerald’s latest book, Emerald Cities,  focuses on how U.S. and Western European cities are addressing the interrelated issues of global warming, energy dependence and opportunities for green economic development.

An emerald city is one that is linking its efforts to be more sustainable or to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to an economic development agenda. There are a lot of top-ten lists of green cities out there, but what I’ve found is that the greenest cities aren’t always emerald cities and emerald cities aren’t always green.

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Fitzgerald’s 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.

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Professor Fitzgerald 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.

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Selected Articles

• On Track to Jobs (Op-Ed) |The Boston Globe, October 19, 2010 (with Joseph McLaughlin)

• State should yell ‘cut’ to film tax credit (Op-Ed) | The Boston Globe, February 19, 2010 (with Peter Enrich)

• China leaving US behind in green energy (Op-Ed) | The Boston Globe, October 22, 2009

• Losing Our Future | The American Prospect, December 2009.

  If we don’t develop a national industrial policy for clean-energy production, the strategies of other nations will displace American companies and jobs.

• Cities on the Front Lines | The American Prospect, April 2009.

  Conversion to solar and wind energy is an environmental necessity and an industrial opportunity. Success will require a concerted national policy.

• The Green Challenge: An Introduction | The American Prospect, March 2009.

• What Can Worker Training Do? | The American Prospect, April 2007.

  Plenty, but career ladders need to lead to rewarding jobs.

• Help Wanted—Green | The American Prospect, December 2006.

  Green development could be a big generator of good jobs—if America will seize the opportunity.

• Getting Serious About Good Jobs | The American Prospect, October 2006.

  We need to link training, job structuring, and economic development.

• The Missing Link in Economic Development | The Boston Globe, March 7, 2006.

• Raising the Bar | The American Prospect, 2004. (with Daphne Hunt)

  We need to reward better-trained child-care and preschool teachers.

• Moving the Workforce Intermediary Agenda Forward | Economic Development Quarterly, 2004.

• The Rebirth of Older Industrial Cities: Exciting Opportunities for Private Sector Investment | Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy, 2004.

• Pathways to Good Jobs | The American Prospect, 2003.

  Can Career Ladders Solve the low-wage Problem?

• NYC Inc.: Retention Deficit Disorder, City Limits, April 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

• Ladders to a Better Life | The American Prospect, 2001. with Virginia Carlson

• Community Colleges as Labor Market Intermediaries | Community Development Research Center, New School University, October 2000. Building Career Ladders for Low Wage Workers

• Salvaging an evaluation from the swampy lowland | with Janice Matthews Rasheed, Evaluation and Program Planning, 1998.

• Is Networking Always the Answer? | Economic Development Quarterly, 1998.

  Networking Among Community Colleges to Increase Their Capacity in Business Outreach

• Principles and Practices of Creating Systems Reform in Urban Workforce Development | Great Cities Institute. College of Urban Planning, May 1999.