All People

Joel Rast

  • Professor, Political Science
  • Director, Urban Studies
  • Director, Center for Economic Development

Education

Ph.D, University of Oregon

B.A., University of California, Santa Cruz

Office Hours

Wednesdays, 1:30-3:30 pm on Teams; in-person by appointment

Courses Taught

  • POL SCI 213 - Urban Government and Politics
  • POL SCI 216 - Environmental Politics
  • URB STD/POL SCI 913 - Urban Political Process
  • URB STD 921 - Research Methods in Urban Studies 

Teaching Interests

  • Urban Development/Redevelopment since World War II
  • Urban Politics
  • Environmental Politics
  • The Politics of Climate Change

Selected Publications

"Racial Governance in Postwar Chicago: A Multiple Orders Perspective." Urban Affairs Review 61.5: 1314-1344, 2025.
“Urban Political Development and the Social Construction of Interests: The Case of Chicago's Dearborn Park” Urban Affairs Review 58.5: 1207-1233, 2022.
"How Policy Paradigms Change: Lessons from Chicago's Urban Renewal Program." In Richardson Dilworth and Timothy P. R. Weaver, eds., How Ideas Shape Urban Political Development. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020.
The Origins of the Dual City: Housing, Race, and Redevelopment in Twentieth-Century Chicago University of Chicago Press, 2019. 
“Urban Regime Theory and the Problem of Change” Urban Affairs Review 51.1: 138-149, 2015.
“Why History (Still) Matters: Time and Temporality in Urban Political Analysis” Urban Affairs Review 48.1: 3-36, 2012.
“Critical Junctures, Long-Term Processes: Urban Redevelopment in Chicago and Milwaukee, 1946-1980” Social Science History 33.4: 393-426, 2009.
“Regime Building, Institution Building: Urban Renewal Policy in Chicago, 1946-1962” Journal of Urban Affairs 31.2: 173-194, 2009.
“Annexation Policy in Milwaukee: An Historical Institutionalist Approach” Polity 39: 55-78, 2007.
“Environmental Justice and the New Regionalism” Journal of Planning Education and Research 25.3: 249-263, 2006.
“Governing the Regimeless City: The Frank Zeidler Administration in Milwaukee, 1948-1960” Urban Affairs Review 42: 81-112, 2006.
Remaking Chicago: The Political Origins of Urban Industrial Change DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1999.