Joseph Schilling

Professor in Practice in Urban Affairs and Planning

Joseph Schilling is an Assistant Research Professor at Virginia Tech's Alexandria Center. Professor Schilling will be leading the Metropolitan Institute’s Green Regions Initiative that will look at innovative ways of creating environmentally sustainable regions through better building and community design. Schilling also provides community and non-profit organizations, government and business leaders with strategic policy guidance and programmatic assessments in such areas as vacant property revitalization, brownfields redevelopment, smart growth, zoning code reform, active living, and military base encroachment.

Prior to joining the Institute, Schilling directed the community and economic development programs for the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) focusing on local governments and the intersection of land use laws and policies as they relate to smart growth and the community revitalization. Together with Smart Growth America and the Local Initiative Support Corporation, he helped launched the National Vacant Properties Campaign as a forum to raise national awareness, coordinate research, and provide technical assistance to communities combating the decay caused by vacant properties. Schilling continues to serve as the Campaign’s Director of Research and Training and work directly with communities on vacant property assessment.

Professor Schilling has written on a variety of community and economic development issues. He completed a series of case studies on the technical tools that local governments and communities can use to revitalize vacant and abandoned buildings, Vacant Properties: Where Broken Windows Meet Smart Growth (2002). Professor Schilling teamed with Charlie Bartsch from the Northeast Midwest Institute to document the lessons learned from EPA’s original 16 Showcase Communities Brownfields Blueprints (2001).

As a public policy facilitator, Professor Schilling has led many forums and workshops, including the September 2004 Brownfields 2020 Executive Symposium, a two-day Brownfields training for EPA Region 9, the Mayor’s Asia Pacific Environmental Summit (MAPES 2001),and numerous sessions on land use controls at the National Brownfields’ Conference and on code reform at the National Smart Growth Partners Conference.

Professor Schilling holds a Masters of Environmental Law (LL.M.) from George Washington University (GWU) and a J.D. from Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. He currently teaches Land Use Law as a Professor in Practice at Virginia Tech’s School of Planning and Urban Affairs in Alexandria. Schilling has also taught courses in State & Local Government Law and Regional Growth at GW Law School and Brownfields, Greyfields, & Vacant Properties, Environmental and Land Use Dispute Resolution, and Water Pollution Law and Policy.

Professor Schilling can be contacted at jms33@vt.edu