College of Architecture and Urban Studies | School of Public and International Affairs

Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs 215 Architecture Annex 540-231-6217 browder@vt.edu

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LINKS

• Planting Seeds of Change in the Ashes of the Rainforest

ACADEMIC BIOGRAPHY

Education

• Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning (University of Pennsylvania, 1986)
• M.A.in City and Regional Planning (University of Pennsylvania, 1983)
• M.P.A. (American University, 1977)
• B.A. in History and Political Science (College of Wooster, 1974)

Areas of Specialization

• International Development Planning
• Environmental Policy and Planning
• Latin American Studies
• Environmental Ethics
• Planning Theory

Courses Taught and Programs

• Global Environmental Issues
• International Development Planning and Policy
• Tropical Deforestation & the World Economy
• Urban Planning & Policy
• International Development Studio
• Environmental Degradation & the Global Economy
• Third World Urbanization & Industrialization
• Nature, Society and the Global Economy
• Environmental Ethics and Policy

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PUBLICATIONS

Selected Publications

Books

• Rain forest Cities: Urbanization, Development and Globalization of the Brazilian Amazon (with Brian J. Godfrey). Columbia University Press, 1997. (abstract)
• Fragile Lands of Latin America: Strategies for Sustainable Development, edited with introduction by John Browder. Westview Press, 1989. (abstract)

Selected Refereed Journal Articles

• "Is Sustainable Tropical Timber Production Financially Viable: A Comparative Analysis of Mahogany Silviculture, Small Farmers in the Brazilian Amazon." With Eraldo Matricardi and Wilson Abdala. Ecological Economics (16), 1995.
• "Redemptive Communities: Indigenous Knowledge, Colonist Farming Systems and Conservation of Tropical Forests." Agriculture and Human Values (Spring) 1995.
• "Patterns of Development on the Metropolitan Fringe: Urban Fringe Expansion in Bangkok, Jakarta, and Santiago" (with James Bohland and Joseph L. Scarpaci). Journal of the American Planning Association (Summer) 1995.
• "Surviving in Rondonia: The Dynamics of Colonist Farming Strategies in Brazil's Northwest Frontier." Studies in Comparative International Development 29(3), 1994.
• "Reading Colonist Landscapes: Social Interpretations of Tropical Forest Patches in an Amazonian Agricultural Frontier." in John Schelhas and Russell Greenberg (eds.), Forest Patches in Tropical Landscapes. (Washington, D.C.: Island Press), in press.
• "The State and the Crisis of Planning in Latin America" (with Jose Antonio Borello). Journal of Planning Literature 6(4), 1992.
• "Public Policy & Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon." in Malcolm Gillis and Robert Repetto (eds.), Public Policy and the Misuse of Forest Resources (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 247-298), 1988.
• "The Social Costs of Rain Forest Destruction: A Critique and Economic Analysis of the 'Hamburger Debate'." Interciencia 13(2), 1988.
• "Brazil's Export Promotion Policy (1980-84): Impacts on the Amazon's Industrial Wood Sector." Journal of Developing Areas, 21 (April), 1987.
• "The Limits of Extractivism: Tropical Forest Strategies Beyond Extractive Reserves." Bioscience 42(3):174-182. March 1992.

Dr. Browder has had professional and consulting appointments from the following organizations: The Inter-American Foundation, The John and Teresa Heinz Chairitable Trust, The World Resources Institute, The National Science Foundation, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, The World Bank, The Agency for International Development, The Overseas Development Council, The National Research Council, The National Academy of Sciences, The United Nations Environment Program, The U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, and The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

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Abstracts

Rain forest Cities: Urbanization, Development and Globalization of the Brazilian Amazon

     (with Brian J. Godfrey). Columbia University Press, 1997.

Despite its popular image as a vast and forbidding tropical forest frontier, Amazonia has undergone a significant urban transformation since the late 1970s. Rainforest Cities is the first comprehensive analysis of the regional urbanization processes underway in the Brazilian Amazon. Drawing on comparative household and sectoral survey research, the authors find that the growth of Amazon cities fits no single current theory of urbanization; instead they propose a pluralistic theory of "disarticulated urbanization" to explain the region's varied and volatile settlement patterns.

Fragile Lands of Latin America: Strategies for Sustainable Development

     edited with introduction by John Browder. Westview Press, 1989

Over 80% of Latin America's land base is considered "fragile" that is, susceptible to severe and permanent degradation under conventional uses such as monocultural farming and ranching. Yet during the past 40 years the expansion of landless peasants, large corporate cattle ranches, agribusiness, and government development projects in tropical forests, Andean highlands, and arid Pacific coastal lands has resulted in a rapid deterioration of the region's fragile land base. This volume presents some alternatives, suggesting how incomes of smallholders and traditional land users can be increased while fragile natural ecosystems are conserved.

Based on the work of 22 distinguished anthropologists, archaeologists, ecologists and geographers," Fragile Lands of Latin America" examines sustainable indigenous farming systems and traditional natural resource management practices that could be adapted to fragile land use planning in Latin America. In addition to examining the cultural and ecological contexts, the contributors assess the financial and economic aspects of these practices, indicating that in many cases they yield greater returns than most conventional development approaches.