Robert J. Gibbs

Robert Gibbs is considered one of the foremost urban retail planners in America. For more than two decades, his expertise has been sought by some of the most respected mayors, renowned architects, and successful real-estate developers in the country. Profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Urban Land, Gibbs has, writes The Atlantic Monthly, “a commercial sensibility unlike anything possessed by the urban planners who usually design downtown-renewal efforts.” He is also a recognized leader in the New Urbanism, having pioneered the implementation of its environmentally sustainable principles of Traditional Town Planning and Smart Growth.

For the past 25 years, Gibbs has been active in developing innovative yet practical methods for applying modern trends in commercial development to more than 400 town centers and historic cities here and abroad. He also planned Michigan’s first ten New Urban communities and Form Based Codes. A speaker at the First Congress of the New Urbanism in 1992 and eight subsequent CNUs, Gibbs lectures frequently throughout the country.

He is the author of "Principles of Urban Retail Planning and Development" and the Retail Module of the SmartCode, and has contributed articles to numerous books and publications. For the past 20 years, he has taught “Urban Retail Planning” in the Executive Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 2012, Gibbs was honored by the Clinton Presidential Library for his life’s contributions to urban planning and development, and by the City of Auckland, New Zealand for his planning innovations.