Alexander von Hoffman is a Senior Fellow at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. He is the author of House by House, Block by Block: The Rebirth of America’s Urban Neighborhoods (Oxford University Press, 2003); Fuel Lines for the Urban Revival Engine: Neighborhoods, Community Development Corporations, and Financial Intermediaries (Fannie Mae Foundation, 2001); and Local Attachments: The Making of an American Urban Neighborhood, 1850 to 1920 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994) and editor of Form, Modernism and History. Essays in Honor of Eduard F. Sekler (Graduate School of Design/Harvard University Press, 1997).
Dr. von Hoffman has written numerous scholarly articles on urban history as well as general-interest essays on housing and urban development for periodicals such as the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. His current major research projects are a history of low-income housing policy in the United States; the emergence of the issue of the preservation of affordable housing; and the rise of regulatory barriers to housing development in greater Boston. Before coming to the Joint Center, von Hoffman was an associate professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design where he continues to teach as a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Urban Planning and Design. He holds a Ph.D. from the Department of History at Harvard University.