How do planners use language, images, and design to shape cities? What happens when urban visions clash with the lived experience of residents? These questions drive my research on the rhetorical practices of urban planners and their consequences for Los Angeles and other American cities. From the City Beautiful movement to urban renewal to contemporary debates over public space, my work explores how planners have communicated their ideas and how those ideas have transformed urban landscapes and the lives of urban inhabitants.

This scholarship spans planning history, heritage conservation, and cultural landscapes, with particular attention to the visual culture of cities and the often-overlooked role of women in shaping the built environment.

Current Research Project

Bunker Hill Refrain: Digital Public History of Los Angeles Urban Renewal

Drake Reitan leads an interdisciplinary team working on a digital public history project that re-examines one of Los Angeles’ most controversial urban renewal efforts. Bunker Hill Refrain tells the story of a Downtown Los Angeles neighborhood that was erased in the 1950s and 1960s to make way for high-rise development.

The project uses digital humanities tools to reconstruct the material and social world of Bunker Hill prior to redevelopment, drawing on sources created by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s. By bringing together archival research, 3D modeling, and geneology the project enables scholars and the public to explore the neighborhood as it once existed and to understand what was lost in the name of progress.

Funding: The project has been supported by multiple major grants, including:

  • USC Office of Research and Innovation, Zumberge Preliminary Studies Large Program Award (2024-2025)
  • USC Office of the Provost, Arts in Action Grant (2024)
  • USC Office of the Provost, Visions and Voices Grant (2023-2024)
  • Ahmanson Lab, Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study (2021)
  • USC Libraries Research Grant and School of Architecture Faculty Research Grant

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

“Kevin Lynch in Los Angeles: Reflections on Planning, Politics and Participation” (with Tridib Banerjee)
Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 84:3-4 (2018), 217-229
DOI: 10.1080/01944363.2018.1524307

This article examines Kevin Lynch’s influential work in Los Angeles during the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on archival research and conversations with planning practitioners, it explores how Lynch’s ideas about urban design and citizen participation were received and implemented in the unique political and planning context of Los Angeles.

“A Cloud Burst Erupts: Visual Rhetoric and Los Angeles’ Grand Intervention”
Journal of Urban Design, Vol. 21:6 (2016), 802-815
DOI: 10.1080/13574809.2016.1184563

An analysis of how visual rhetoric shaped public perception of Grand Avenue, one of Los Angeles’ most ambitious urban design projects. The article traces how planners and developers used imagery to sell their vision of Downtown renewal.

“Beauty Controlled: The Persistence of City Beautiful Planning in Los Angeles”
Journal of Planning History, Vol. 13:4 (2014), 296-321
DOI: 10.1177/1538513213508078

This article demonstrates how City Beautiful principles—often dismissed as outdated or elitist—continued to shape Los Angeles’ development well into the 20th century, particularly in the design of civic spaces and the regulation of the urban landscape.

“Picturing Planning: A World Worthy of a New Yorker Cover”
Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, Vol. 32:3 (2015), 199-216

An exploration of how planners use visual culture to communicate their ideas and shape public understanding of urban problems and solutions.

“Model, Medium, and Metaphor: Planning and Design Confront the Natural World”
Journal of Urban History (2020)
DOI: 10.1177/0096144220916193

Book Chapters

“Making History: Seeing the Future of the Urban Past with 3D Technologies”
In Beyond Aesthetics and Exclusion: New Directions in Historic Preservation and Public History, Kathleen Powers Conti and Frank Ordia, Editors (2024, in progress)

“Cultural Acropolis”
In Bunker Hill in the Rearview Mirror: The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of an Urban Neighborhood, Christina Rice and Emma Roberts, Editors, Los Angeles Public Library (2015)
Available on Amazon

Multiple essays on Los Angeles planning and public space
In Planning Los Angeles, David C. Sloane, Editor, APA Planners Press (2012)
Includes: “Regulating Visual Blight,” “The City as Textbook,” “Tinker Toy Urbanism,” “The Politics of Food and Culture,” “Planning a Great Civic Park,” and “Finding Public Space on Private Beaches”
Available on Amazon

“Historic Preservation Overlay Zones in Los Angeles: Progressive Tools for Neighborhood Development?”
In Hoffnungsträger Zivilgesellschaft? Governance, Nonprofits und Stadtentwicklung in den Metropolenregionen der USA, Uwe Altrock, Heike Hoffmann, Barbara Schönig, Editors, Berlin (2007)

Review Essays

“Makers Mark: New Works Deepen the Field of Suburban History”
Journal of Planning History (2020)
DOI: 10.1177/1538513220946035

“Visualizing Cities, Past and Present”
Journal of Planning History, Vol. 10:2 (2011), 164-170
DOI: 10.1177/1538513210392407