Robert Gibbs

Robert J. Gibbs, AICP, ASLA, President, Gibbs Planning Group, Inc. (GPG), is an author, urban planner and real estate advisor who has contributed to over 500 master plans across the Americas, Europe and Pacific Rim including Alexandria, Auckland, Charleston, Detroit, Disney, Hilton Head, Houston, Naples, Palm Desert, Portland and Santa Cruz. Gibbs has been an instructor at the Harvard GSD Executive Education program for over 22 years and was recently named one of the Top 100 Urban Thinkers of the Twentieth Century by Planetizen. In 2012, he 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.

Gibbs is a charter member of the Congress for the New Urbanism, gives frequent lectures and has co-authored four books. Gibbs authored the Urban Retail Form Based Code Module, and in 2012 published Principles of Urban Retail Planning and Development (Wiley, 2012). The book has received wide acclaim and was described by the APA as “…Not all sweetness and light, but one planners can ill afford to ignore.” The Atlantic stated: “Gibbs has an urban planning sensibility unlike anything possessed by the urban planners who usually design downtown renewal efforts.” A professional landscape architect in Michigan and North Carolina, Gibbs earned an MLA from the University of Michigan. He founded GPG in 1988 and has prior experience with JJR/Smith and Taubman Company.