Bernadette Baird-Zars

About Bernadette Baird-Zars

I research local implementation and informal institutions, primarily in arenas of zoning, permitting, and flood adaptation. I also study processes of frontline community leadership, co-production, and spatial exclusion/integration, often using institutional ethnography and analysis. I am fluent and work in Spanish, English and Levantine Arabic.

Areas of Expertise

Land Use Planning and Governance, International Development Planning, Housing, Environmental Planning and Resource Management

Selected Publications

Baird-Zars, B. \Behind the Frontline: Bureaucrats and Sustained Cooperation\ in Pokharel, Atul, John Forester, Raul P. Lejano, Wing Shan Kan, Aleksi Heinilä, Hanna Mattila, Babak Manouchehrifar, Bernadette Baird-Zars, and Kieran P. Donaghy. \On Theories and Practices of Collective Action and Sustained Cooperation: Edited by Atul Pokharel and John Forester.\ Planning Theory & Practice 25, no. 3 (2024): 409-447., Morris, A., Baird-Zars, B (equal first author)., Sanders, V., Gallay, P., Klopp, J. M., Hernandez, A., ... & Lin, H. S. A. (2024). Advancing equitable partnerships: frontline community visions for coastal resiliency knowledge co-production, social cohesion, and environmental justice. Geoforum, 154, 104051.
Baird-Zars, Bernadette. \Making the ropes: How daily practices in a booming periurban municipality become durable 'gray' institutions shaping land use.\ Land Use Policy 129 (2023): 106604., Sclar, Elliott, Bernadette Baird-Zars, Lauren Ames Fischer, and Valerie Stahl, eds. Zoning: A guide for 21st-century planning. Routledge, 2020.

Recent Courses Taught

History and Theory of Planning (graduate), Methods of Planning Analysis (undergraduate), Introduction to Urban Studies (undergraduate), Governance for Inclusive Cities (graduate)