Phil Birge-Liberman

Associate Professor-in-Residence, Urban and Community Studies

Primary Research Theme

Built Environment

Secondary Research Themes

Healthy Cities

Research Interests

Phil Birge-Liberman is an urban-historical geographer. His main teaching and research interest examines the changing social practices of urban park use, the privatization of public space, and the relationship between the restoration of historic parks, gentrification and urban sustainability. He frequently engages students in service learning projects by partnering with community groups leading to various projects, including: food deserts in Waterbury, developing a healthy corner store program in Waterbury, and park user surveys in Hartford’s Keney Park.

Recent Cities-Related Projects

  • ‘Black Turf and White Fear’: Race, Neglect, and the Public Image of Franklin Park in Mid-Twentieth Century Boston: This paper examines how changing demographics and attitudes related to Franklin Park transformed the park’s landscape. Franklin Park developed an image as the city’s “Black park” due its location neighborhoods that had flipped from majority white to majority Black between the 1950s to the 1980s. This paper engages issues regarding race, territoriality, and public space to examine the power relations associated with the discursive and materialist struggles over Franklin Park.
  • The Legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted: Urban Parks in the 21st Century: Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) is widely regarded as the founder of the field of landscape architecture and as America’s preeminent park designer. In this project I seek to apply Olmsted’s model of park design to the future conditions facing American cities. There is a lot to learn from Olmsted’s park design philosophy, and I will examine the ways in which we can take elements of Olmsted’s 19th century park design and apply it to the creation or restoration of parks in the 21st century.
  • Greening Hartford and the Keney Park Action Plan: The Hartford 400 plan aims to remake the city into a sustainable and resilient city. One of the key action areas of the Hartford 400 plan is to make the city more “green”. This project attempts to look at Keney Park, in the city’s North End within the framework of the Hartford 400 plan. This community-based project has partnered with the Keney Park Sustainability Project (KPSP), to examine ways of redeveloping the park to, in part, fulfill the goals of the Hartford 400 plan.