Call for Papers

SACRPH 2026
The 21st National Conference on Planning History

University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 15-18, 2026

Call for Papers

Deadline for submissions: February 15, 2026

The Society for American City and Regional Planning History (SACRPH) cordially invites scholars and practitioners to present papers and convene panels on all aspects of the history of urban, regional, and community planning, across all geographies.

The conference will commence with a keynote talk Thursday night on “Colonial Urbanism and Racial Imagination.” Friday will include daytime tours in the Cincinnati region and an evening roundtable on the history of SACRPH to mark its 40th anniversary. Saturday features papers panels, roundtables, workshops, and a poster session; a lunchtime presidential address; and an evening awards reception. The conference will conclude on Sunday morning with additional paper panels, roundtables, and workshops.

All events will take place in person in and around Cincinnati and the campus of the University of Cincinnati. 

The Program Committee welcomes proposals for individual research papers and complete research paper panel sessions (of three or four papers) as well as roundtables and workshops to discuss the state of the field. We also encourage submissions that propose innovative formats and that engage questions of teaching and learning, digital information, and publishing.

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Submission Instructions

Proposals must be submitted via the submission links on this webpage. Each proposal must include the following:

For All Submissions: 

  • cover sheet with contact information of all participants including job title, institution, email address, and mobile phone number
  • one-page CV for each participant
  • four key words identifying the thematic emphases of the proposed paper/session

For Individual Research Papers:

  • 250-word abstract

For Panels of Research Papers:

  • indicate lead contact (if a student, include program and year of study)
  • names of chair and commentator, if available
  • 250-word overview of the session’s themes and significance
  • 250-word abstract for each paper 

For Roundtable, Workshop, and Other Session Types:

  • indicate lead contact (if a student, include program and year of study)
  • name of session chair
  • 250-word overview of the session’s themes and significance, including a description of the format (roundtable, workshop, other)
  • 100-word abstract of the potential contribution of each participant

All submissions should be formatted with a standard 12-point font and 1.25-inch side margins, and assembled into a single attached document (no links) in PDF or Word format, that includes: 1) cover page with contact information for all participants, paper or session title, and keywords; 2) abstracts and, if applicable, session description; and 3) one-page CV(s). Do not include any illustrations. For the filename, please use this nomenclature:  “Last Name, Format [paper, panel, roundtable, etc.], Short Title.”

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Thanks to donations honoring Robert S. Birch, John W. Reps, and David Schuyler, SACRPH is pleased to be able to offer travel grants of up to $500 for graduate students who are selected for the program. We will announce the travel grant application process next spring, once the Program Committee has selected papers and panels for inclusion on the program.

To further support student work, we have also issued a Call for Posters. Poster proposals are due by March 1, 2026.

The conference will conclude with an awards ceremony recognizing the winners of SACRPH’s 2026 biennial awards competition. We welcome nominations for a range of prizes by the December 31, 2025 nomination deadline. Please see the Call for Nominations on our website for more info.

SACRPH is an interdisciplinary organization dedicated to promoting scholarship on the planning of cities and metropolitan regions over time and to bridging the gap between the scholarly study of cities and the practice of urban planning. The organization’s members come from a range of professions and areas of interest, and include historians, architects, planners, environmentalists, geographers and other social scientists, landscape designers, public policy makers, historic preservationists, community organizers, and students from across the country and around the world. SACRPH publishes a quarterly journal, The Journal of Planning History, hosts a biennial conference, and sponsors awards for research and publication in the field of planning history. For further information please consult our website.

Program Committee

Co-Chair: Jennifer Hock, Maryland Institute College of Art 
Co-Chair: Rebecca Retzlaff, Auburn University

Julian Chambliss, Michigan State University
Rob Gioielli, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Benjamin Holtzman, Lehman College, CUNY
Ella Howard, Wentworth Institute of Technology 
Trude Renwick, University of Manchester
Andy Meyer, Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments
Damon Scott, Miami University
Angela Stiefbold, Roanoke Public Libraries
Rebecca Summer, Portland State University

For questions, contact: sacrph2026@gmail.com.