Howell Baum

Howell Baum is an Emeritus Professor in the Urban Studies and Planning program. Baum has completed a historical study of Baltimore school desegregation entitled Brown in Baltimore: School Desegregation and the Limits of Liberalism. The book analyzes how liberalism hinders knowing and talking about race and limits possibilities of racial integration. He has been studying the psychological dynamics of race relations. He is beginning research on planning and the problem of evil, looking at how conventional views of rationality fail to understand and deal with normal human destructive impulses.

Among his research interests are:

• Planning theory and planning practice
• Liberalism: its influence on public policy, its failure in comprehending race
• American race relations and racial reconciliation
• History of Baltimore school desegregation
• School reform
• Community organizing and community planning
• Organizational behavior and bureaucracy
• Psychology of planning and decision making
• Evil: why people do it, how liberal rationalism fails to comprehend and deal with it