Carl Abbott retired after teaching urban studies and planning at Portland State University over five decades. He has written about the history of cities from Washington to Chicago to Los Angeles to Portland. He is a past president of the Urban History Association and the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association and has served as co-editor of the Journal of the American Planning Association and the Pacific Historical
Review. He also writes about the intersections of history, urbanism, and speculative fiction. Recent short essays have appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, Public Books, Washington Post, and Bloomberg CityLab.