FULL-TIME FACULTY
Robyne Turner
(Ph.D., University of Florida)
Dr. Turner is a specialist in the fields of urban redevelopment, community development, and urban politics. Her work has centered on the issues of how urban land is used and how decisions and policy concerning the use of land are made. She earned her Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Florida with specialization in urban politics and urban and regional planning. Upon receiving her Ph.D., she began her career as a faculty member and graduate director in Political Science at Florida Atlantic University. Dr. Turner accepted the Schutte/Missouri Professorship in Urban Affairs at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2002. There she served as the faculty director for The Center for the City, Chair of the Department of Public Affairs, and as Director of the Cookingham Institute of Urban Affairs.
Dr. Turner has published in several major journals including Urban Affairs Review, Journal of Urban Affairs, and the Journal of Planning Education Research. In 2001 she was awarded with her co-author, the JPER Best Article of the Year by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. She also is co-editor of the 1992 book, Gender in Urban Research, which continues to be one of the most cited urban and gender issue books in publication. Her most significant work to date includes a comparative study of downtown and community development in five Sunbelt cities. In addition to traditional scholarly publications, Dr. Turner has worked on numerous public and nonprofit studies resulting in task force reports, community plans, housing studies, and community development corporation reports. One of the most interesting and ongoing collaborative efforts was her work on the revitalization of Troost Avenue in Kansas City, MO which resulted in a multi-media presentation of the history, current issues, and prospects for redevelopment on this noted historic Avenue.
Currently, Dr. Turner is continuing a significant new project on community economic development that started in Kansas City. In conjunction with a national organization, Social Compact, Inc., she and others at UMKC conducted a DrillDown study for the entire city of Kansas City. This is a unique method of recounting the population to uncover undercounted households typically found in the urban core of cities. The purpose of this work is to provide new data to encourage investment in retail and other commercial development in the urban core that is typically underserved. An exciting feature of this work is her collaboration with NonProfit Technologies, Inc. to develop a simple and accessible mapping system to view the DrillDown data and other data sets in geographic fashion. It is a very productive area of applied research that she hopes to begin in Camden.
Dr. Turner will be directing the new Ph.D. in Public Affairs – Community Development (pending final approvals) with an expected start date of Fall 2010. She also teaches in the Urban Studies undergraduate program as well as the MPA. Dr. Turner lives in the Cooper-Grant neighborhood of Camden and is involved in the Big Sisters program at Cooper’s Poynt Elementary School in Camden.