Stephan Schmidt's interests focus on three areas:
- The formation of local environmental policy and open space preservation practices
- The social and cultural context of urban design
- International comparative land use planning practices.
His current ongoing research projects include:
- Politics of environmental and planning regulation in slow-growing conservative small towns along the Lake Ontario shoreline of Upstate New York (with Rolf Pendall) The purpose of the study is to understand more fully the relationship between perceptions of water quality and supportfor actions to solve/mitigate the problem.
- Interaction between the privatization of public space provision accessibility, and social exclusion in New York City (with Jeremy Nemeth)
- Ongoing research into the changing institutional landscape of planning processes and urbanization patterns in Germany, in particular the effect of privatization and regional level planning initiatives on the methods and tools available to local, regional, and state level planners to affect land use patterns.
Peer reviewed publications
- Schmidt, S. (2009) “Has planning in Germany changed? Recent developments in local and regional planning in Germany” European Planning Studies, vol.17(12).
- Schmidt, S. and Paulsen, K. (2009) “Is Open Space Preservation a Form of Exclusionary Zoning? The Evolution of Municipal Open-Space Policies in New Jersey” Urban Affairs Review, vol. 45(1): 92-118.
- Schmidt, S. (2008) "The evolving relationship between open space preservation and local planning practice” Journal of Planning History, vol. 7(2).
- Nemeth, J. and Schmidt, S. (2007) “Security, Liberty and the Accessibility of Public Space: An Empirical Study“ Journal of the American Planning Association, vol. 73(3):283-297.
Critique: Ewing, R. (2007) “Security of public spaces: New measures are reliable, but are they valid?” Planning, July 2007 (Electronic copy available here)
- Schmidt, S. and Buehler, R. (2007) “The Planning Process in the U.S. and Germany: A Comparative Analysis,” International Planning Studies, vol.12(1):55-75.
- Lichtenstein, A., Nemeth, J. and Schmidt, S. (2006) “Suburban Bypass roads and interjurisdictional politics: A case study“ World Transportation Policy and Practice vol. 12(1). (Electronic copy available here)
- Schmidt, S. (2005) “Cultural Influences and the Built Environment: An Examination of Kumasi, Ghana”, Journal of Urban Design, vol.10 (3):353-370.
Non-peer reviewed work
- Invited book review: Schmidt, S. Review of Green Urbanism Down Under: Learning from Sustainable Communities in Australia, by Timothy Beatley, Journal of Urban Technology.
- Schmidt, S. and Stone, S. Variations on the EIS Methodology and Natural Gas Drilling in New York State, in Marsh, W. Landscape Planning: Environmental Applications, 5th ed. John Wiley and Sons.
- Wells, J., Schmidt, S., Nemeth, J, and Lombardi, P. (2005) “Transit Village Monitoring Research” Prepared for the New Jersey Department of Transportation, available
- Schmidt, Stephan (2004) “World Wide Plaza: The Corporatization of Urban Public Space,” IEEE Technology and Society, vol.23(3) Also published as “World Wide Plaza: A Corporatizacao do Espaco Publico Urbano”(2005), Urbanismo Revista da Associacao dos Urbanistas Portugueses, no 8. (Electronic copy available here.)
- Schmidt, Stephan “Structural Adjustment and Urban Planning and Development Patterns in Africa” (2004) APA Interplan, no.75.
Selected conference presentations (peer reviewed abstracts)
- Schmidt, S. "Post-Socialist Sprawl: Explaining land consumption patterns in east and west Germany." Paper and presentation , Joint ACSP-AESOP Conference, July 2008, Chicago, Ilinois.
- Schmidt, S. "Recent development in German land use planning tools." Paper and presentation, Associated Collegiate Schools of Planning, October 2007, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Schmidt, S. "Local planning practices in the US and Germany: A comparative study." Paper and presentation, Associated Collegiate Schools of Planning, October 2006, Ft. Worth, Texas (Electronic copy of working paper available here)
- Schmidt, S. "Open space and the 'ratables' chase: preservation as a tool for fiscal planning." Paper and presentation, Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, October 2005, Kansas City, Missouri.
- Schmidt, "Nature in the suburbs: The determinants of local open space preservation." Paper and presentation, Associated Collegiate Schools of Planning, October 2004, Portland, Oregon.
