Alain Bertaud is an urbanist and, since 2012, a senior research scholar at the NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management. He just completed writing a book about urban planning that is titled “Order Without Design: How Markets Shape Cities“. This book has been published by MIT Press in November 2018. Bertaud previously held the position of principal urban planner at the World Bank. After retiring from the Bank in 1999, he worked as an independent consultant. Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked as a resident urban planner in a number of cities around the world: Bangkok, San Salvador (El Salvador), Port Au Prince (Haiti), Sana’a (Yemen), New York, Paris, Tlemcen (Algeria), and Chandigarh (India).
Bertaud’s research, conducted in collaboration with his wife Marie-Agnès, aims to bridge the gap between operational urban planning and urban economics. Their work focuses primarily on the interaction between urban forms, real estate markets, and regulations.
As an urban planner, Alain's goal is to translate the theories (and sometimes the jargon) and equations of urban economists into approaches and methods which can lead to concrete decision making in the everyday world of an urban planning office. The following reports and papers, always produced at the request of a municipality or of an urban investor (mostly the World Bank), illustrate these new approaches and methods. He has written these reports and papers over a long period.
