Piper R. Gaubatz
· Professor, Department HeadVerifiedUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst · Geography
Active 1989–2020
About
Piper R. Gaubatz is a professor and department head in the Department of Earth, Geographic, and Climate Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She holds a PhD from the University of California-Berkeley, earned in 1989. Her research interests focus on urban geography, specifically the study of urban change, development, and environmental issues in East Asia and the United States. She is interested in the processes that shape urban space and examines the historical and contemporary linkages between policy, practice, and physical and social urban forms in China, Japan, and the U.S. Her work addresses questions related to the impacts of environmental planning, such as the transformation of Beijing for the 2008 Olympics, and explores the effects of new urban development models generated in China when applied in different regions. Additionally, she investigates how the establishment of cities in China’s northern frontier regions has affected lives, landscapes, and ecologies in the grasslands of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. Her expertise encompasses urban change, development, and environmental issues across East Asia and the U.S., contributing to understanding the complex interactions between urban policies, practices, and their environmental and social outcomes.
Research topics
- Economic growth
- Economics
- Environmental planning
- Demographic economics
- Mathematics
- Mathematical analysis
- History
- Environmental science
Selected publications
2020-10-26
book-chapterSenior author2020-10-26
book-chapterSenior authorEnvironmental quality and sustainability
2020-10-26
book-chapterSenior author2020-10-26
book-chapterSenior authorChina’s Urban Public Space in Comparative Perspective:
MQUP eBooks · 2020-04-16
book-chapter1st authorCorresponding2020-10-26
book-chapterSenior authorLearning from Taiyuan: Chinese cities as urban sustainability laboratories
Geography and sustainability · 2020 · 31 citations
1st authorCorresponding- Environmental planning
- Environmental science
This essay considers China's emerging role as a “laboratory” for innovation in achieving urban sustainability. Its purpose is to highlight, in the context of the Sino-American Symposium on Future Issues Affecting Quality of Life, aspects of Chinese urbanization which contribute to China's increasing global significance as a site for natural experiments in urban sustainability. Such experiments are relevant not only to the future quality of life in China, but also to the growing number of countries participating in development partnerships with China. The essay begins with an overview of urban sustainability and China's particular urban challenges. We then focus on three aspects of Chinese urbanization which stand out as distinct in fostering urban innovation and in serving as appropriate laboratories for the development of innovative practices in urban sustainability for the global south— the pace, scale and governance of urbanization. We use examples from the city of Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, to ground the discussion in a specific place, while acknowledging that, although Taiyuan serves well to illustrate many key points, it is only one case and cannot serve as a basis of generalization about China as a whole.
2020-10-26
book-chapterSenior author2020-10-26
book-chapterSenior authorMigration and population mobility
2020-10-26
book-chapterSenior author
Frequent coauthors
- 9 shared
Weiping Wu
- 8 shared
Weiping Wu
Zhejiang University
- 4 shared
Margaret Peil
- 2 shared
Goss Ernest
Creighton University
- 2 shared
Julia Wardhaugh
- 2 shared
Thomas A. Clark
- 2 shared
David J. Edelman
- 2 shared
Stephen Nord
Northern Illinois University
Education
- 1989
PhD, Geography
University of California Berkeley
- 1986
MA, Geography
University of California Berkeley
- 1984
BA, summa cum laude, Sociology
Princeton University
- Resume-aware match score
- Save to shortlist
- AI-drafted outreach
See your match with Piper R. Gaubatz
PhdFit ranks faculty by your research interests, methods, and publications — grounded in their actual work, not templates.
- Free to start
- No credit card
- 30-second signup