CHUCK WOLFE is a multinational urbanism consultant, author, and influencer, Visiting and Guest Scholar in Scotland and Sweden (2014 and 2017-22), a recent Fulbright Specialist in Australia for an award-winning project, and a long-time American environmental/land use lawyer. In addition to his law degree from the University of Oregon, he holds a graduate degree in regional planning from Cornell University. He has 38 years of experience in environmental, land use, and real estate law. He has held leadership positions in both the legal and planning professions. He has represented public and private clients in property redevelopment, regulatory entitlements, drafting, and brownfield remediation issues in Washington State and other venues.
He is the Founder and Principal Advisor of Seeing Better Cities Group, practiced at several law firms, and lived abroad from 2017-2022. At the UW, he has taught land use law and contributed to major research efforts addressing urban center and brownfield redevelopment. He has served on the Board of Futurewise. He is the former Vice Chair, Fund Development, and former Treasurer of the Northwest District Council/Urban Land Institute and served on its Managing and Advisory Boards. He has been a frequent radio and podcast guest in several countries. He has written regularly for many publications, including GeekWire, The Atlantic, The Atlantic Cities/CityLab, Governing, CityMetric, Planetizen, The Huffington Post, Grist, and Crosscut. He has blogged at myurbanist.com and sustainingplace.com.
From 2023 on, the best way to access his writing is via Substack, at Resurgence, A Journey.
He is the author of Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character (Rowman and Littlefield (2021), the third in a trilogy of books addressing how to determine the intrinsic identities of cities and urban places. He is also the author of Seeing the Better City (2017) (finalist for a 2018 UK National Urban Design Award) and Urbanism Without Effort (rev. ed. 2019), both from Island Press.
The Renewed Challenge: Sustaining a City's Culture and Character
From the outset, defining the culture and character of a city is a daunting task, especially when the city around you disappears.
Congestion Pricing: An Expat View
Writing from London in an Op-Ed for Seattle’s Crosscut, Chuck Wolfe argues for a contextual approach to a much-touted search for transportation equity.
The Practical Confessions of an Urbanist Pilgrim
After 12 days of walking the Portuguese Camino, the importance of many urban planning and development debates—from balanced growth to banning cars—became abundantly clear.
A Good Read for Planners and Peers: Why Old Places Matter
A recent book brings a common sense framework to historic preservation debates.
On Different Ways to See a Place
Looking forward to 2019, Chuck Wolfe reflects on how time living in London—and exposure to many other places during 2018— has highlighted how the physical shell of the old often frames today's sociocultural realities around the world.