By Robin F. Bachin, University of Miami
It is with deep sadness and a profound sense of loss that I share this memorial tribute to Alison Isenberg and her remarkable contributions both to SACRPH and the field of urban history more broadly. Alison passed away on October 23, 2025. She was Professor of History at Princeton University and co-founder of the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities. Alison will be remembered by all who knew her as an incredibly generous scholar and teacher, who delighted in connecting with researchers across disciplines and in elevating the work of those around her. That is why she hosted book launch events for her graduate students, brought younger scholars into the fold of professional organizations, and became such a valued and inspiring mentor, colleague, and organizational leader, especially at SACRPH.
Alison’s innovative approach to scholarship reflected SACRPH’s mission of bridging the gap between academic research and the practice of planning. Her work impacted so many fields, from urban history to historic preservation, art history to geography, and architecture to public policy. The interdisciplinary nature of her work reflected the breadth and capacious quality of the questions she sought to answer and the sources and analytic frameworks she used to address them. Her dissertation won the John Reps Prize from SACRPH, and the book that grew out of it, Downtown America: A History of the Place and the People Who Made It (University of Chicago Press, 2004), won SACRPH’s Lewis Mumford Prize, along with numerous others. Her second book, Designing San Francisco: Art, Land and Urban Renewal in the City by the Bay (Princeton University Press, 2017), received the 2018 PROSE Award for Architecture & Urban Planning from the Association of American Publishers, and a John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize from the Foundation for Landscape Studies. Both books showcased Alison’s meticulous research, analytical sophistication, and interpretive creativity. Writing against a narrative of urban decline, she demonstrated how diverse groups of civic actors, including planners, policymakers, real estate developers, artists, and activists, battled to shape the contours of commercial development, land use, aesthetics, and historic preservation in urban America and created city spaces where competing visions of citizenship could be enacted.
In the tradition of SACRPH, Alison brought a practitioner’s sensibility to the study of urbanism. She explored the multiplicity of factors that impact what policies get passed, plans promoted, and projects developed. Her work as a planner with the New York City Parks Department and with the Community Preservation Corporation in the South Bronx on affordable housing shaped her approach to the study of urban history. She was attuned not only to the messy nature of the power dynamics that inform urban planning and development, but also to the lived experiences of the residents most impacted by planning decisions. Alison’s scholarship amplified diverse community voices and showed how attention to local experiences can reshape larger national narratives of urban change. She championed innovative and dynamic place-making initiatives while at the same time fostering public engagement that enhanced student learning.
Her most recent project, Uprisings, provides a local Trenton-based perspective on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 and its aftermath in U.S. cities. The Uprisings initiative brought together faculty, students, and community partners from Trenton to create a multimedia project that includes a photo exhibition, performance walks, a documentary film, and efforts to develop a local Peace Park. The expansiveness of her vision for connecting campus and community led to engagement with public schools to strengthen student opportunities for conducting original research into Trenton’s history. It also brought about Princeton University Library’s acquisition of the photographic archives of the Trenton Times, an opportunity that grew out of Alison’s deep dive into the newspaper’s vast collection and her recognition of the importance of preserving the photographic record of Trenton’s history for students and community members. Alison understood the role public urban history projects can play in shaping historical understanding of cities and sense of place, and informing present-day practice in planning, urban revitalization, and economic justice.
Alison was deeply committed to SACRPH and its role in cultivating connections between academics and practitioners, and its dedication to nurturing young scholars through promoting active participation in organizational leadership. Many of Alison’s former students have shared their gratitude for her unflagging support of their research, generosity in the time she dedicated to them, and persistence in seeing them through their academic and career journeys. Kara Schlichting, Associate Professor of History at Queens College, CUNY and former graduate student of Alison’s, recalled, “Alison treated graduate students as equals and happily facilitated connections in the field. Her generosity in this effort was constant and extraordinary. I can see today, in collegial networks of scholars across SACRPH, her work building community between senior scholars, early career scholars, and graduate students alike. Alison will remain for me the model of the type of scholar and friend I strive to be.”
I had the privilege of working closely with Alison when I was President of SACRPH and she was President Elect and co-chair, along with Owen Gutfreund, of the Program Committee for the 2009 conference in Oakland. Alison drew on her deep connections in the Bay Area to shape a rich program that included a dynamic plenary session on regional equity and planning as well as a tour of alternative agriculture sites on the urban fringe that featured a wine tasting at Ravenswood Winery. The conference brought innovations to the program, including New Media sessions, an undergraduate and master’s student poster session, and a much larger book exhibition. Alison also was instrumental in helping to establish the Journal of Planning History and served as the inaugural book review editor.
In all she did, Alison exuded generosity, elegance and grace. To me and many other SACRPH members, Alison was more than a respected and admired colleague; she was a dear, trusted friend whose genuineness and boundless capacity for positivity impacted all who knew her. She is survived by her devoted husband, Keith Wailoo, Henry Putnam University Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton, along with their daughters Sahara Iman Wailoo and Myla Eleanor Isenberg Wailoo, as well as numerous extended family members and friends. A public memorial and celebration of Alison’s life will be held at the Princeton University Chapel on Saturday, December 6, 2025 at 11:00 am. SACRPH will also honor Alison’s legacy at the upcoming meeting in Cincinnati in October 2026, with further details to come.
