Joseph Heathcott

Joseph Heathcott

Joseph Heathcott
Born	1968 Evansville, Indiana, United States
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Washington University (BA) Indiana University (MA, PhD)
Occupations	Writer Educator Scholar Artist
Employer	The New School
Known for	Urbanism History and Theory of Architecture City Planning Urban theory Cultural landscape Visual culture Photography
Notable work	Beyond the Ruins: The Meanings of Deindustrialization Capturing the City: Photographs from the Streets of St. Louis, 1900-1930 Global Queens: An Urban Mosaic
Website	heathcott.nyc urbanspacelab.org newschool.edu/parsons/faculty/joseph-heathcott/

Joseph Heathcott (born 1968) is an American writer, educator, scholar, and artist based in New York City. He is a Professor of Urban and Environmental Studies at The New School, where he teaches at Parsons School of Design and the Milano School for Policy, Management, and Environment. He is also the founder and director of the Laboratory for Urban Spatial and Landscape Research. His work spans urbanism, the history and theory of architecture, city planning, urban theory, cultural landscape studies, visual culture, and photography.

Early Life

Joseph Heathcott was born in 1968 in Evansville, Indiana, into a working-class Catholic family. Growing up during the 1970s and 1980s. He developed an early interest in the fragility and resilience of urban environments, a passion that he expressed through photography, a skill deeply influenced by his upbringing in a gritty industrial city and his family's experiences with deindustrialization. As a teenager, Heathcott became involved in anti-nuclear activism, particularly in campaigns against the MX Missile and the proliferation of nuclear power plants.

Education

Heathcott attended Washington University in St. Louis, where he studied History and Political Theory. During his time there, he also pursued his interests in photography and printmaking, and began exploring Situationist-inspired practices such as agit-prop, détournement, and psychogeography. Influential thinkers he encountered during his studies include Walter Benjamin, James Baldwin, Stuart Hall, and Jane Jacobs. Heathcott was actively involved with the Catholic Worker movement and the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES).

After graduating in 1990, Heathcott received training in community organizing with the Industrial Areas Foundation in the South Bronx and the National Training and Information Center in Chicago. In 1992, he began part-time graduate studies at Indiana University, where he worked on local housing and homeless campaigns in Southern Indiana. He earned an M.A. in Public History in 1996 and a dual Ph.D. in History and American Studies in 2001, studying under John Bodnar, Henry Glassie, and Casey Nelson Blake.

Academic Career

Heathcott began his academic career in 1999 as a Visiting Lecturer in the School of Architecture and the Program in American Culture Studies at Washington University. In 2001, he was appointed Assistant Professor of American Studies at Saint Louis University, where he also taught in the Urban Planning program.

In 2007, he joined the faculty at The New School in New York as an Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Faculty Director of Civic Engagement at Eugene Lang College. By 2011, he became part of the newly formed Schools for Public Engagement. Currently, Heathcott is a tenured Professor of Urban and Environmental Studies at the Milano School for Policy, Management, and Environment and Parsons School of Design.

Throughout his career, Heathcott has received numerous prestigious fellowships, including the U.S. Fulbright Distinguished Chair for the United Kingdom, Mellon Distinguished Fellowship in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities at Princeton University, and a Distinguished Visiting Fellowship at the CUNY Graduate Center. He has also taught at several prominent institutions, including the University of the Arts London, Sciences Po in Paris, London School of Economics, and the University of Vienna. Heathcott served as President of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History and has been on numerous editorial boards.

Scholarly and Creative Practice

Joseph Heathcott is widely recognized as an interdisciplinary scholar and creative practitioner of urbanism. His dissertation and early work focused on the interplay between race, class, and the built environment. His first book, Beyond the Ruins: The Meanings of Deindustrialization, co-edited with Jefferson Cowie, reframes the debate on capital flight and its geographies. He has published extensively on topics such as race, housing, and urban planning, and appeared in the documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. Heathcott also co-edited a special issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association for the 75th anniversary of the 1937 Housing Act .

In addition to his academic work, Heathcott has a significant practice in photography and visual culture. His book Capturing the City: Photographs from the Streets of St. Louis, 1900-1930, co-authored with Angela Dietz, examines how municipal officials documented their city through photography. His latest book, Global Queens: An Urban Mosaic, explores the spatial complexity and social diversity of Queens, New York, and won the David Coffin Publication Award from the Center for Landscape Studies. His photographic work on cities such as Mexico City, Paris, Marrakech, and Oaxaca has appeared in various publications and exhibitions.

Heathcott's current work focuses on urban spatial production and landscape forms. He collaborated with Ron van Oers on the UNESCO Historic Urban Landscape approach, publishing a research project on the Swahili Coast of East Africa. His interest in infrastructure led to the publication of The Routledge Handbook of Infrastructure Design: Global Views from Architectural History and Urban Infrastructure: Historical and Social Dimensions of an Interconnected World, co-edited with Jonathan Soffer and Ray Zimmerman. In 2022, Heathcott founded the Laboratory for Urban Spatial and Landscape Research at The New School to support ongoing projects with his Ph.D. students and colleagues.

Personal Life

Joseph Heathcott resides in Jackson Heights, Queens, with his partner of over 30 years, Ashley Cruce.

Selected Works

• Beyond the Ruins: The Meanings of Deindustrialization (2003), co-edited with Jefferson Cowie
• Capturing the City: Photographs from the Streets of St. Louis, 1900-1930 (2007), with Angela Dietz
• The New Suburban History (2005), co-edited with Kevin M. Kruse
• Global Queens: An Urban Mosaic (2017)
• Urban Infrastructure: Historical and Social Dimensions of an Interconnected World (2020), co-edited with Jonathan Soffer and Ray Zimmerman
• The Routledge Handbook of Infrastructure Design: Global Views from Architectural History (2021)
• Neoliberal Cities: The Remaking of Postwar Urban America (2022), with Andrew J. Diamond