William Grady Holt is the associate director of the Land Use and Natural Resources Law Center at Cumberland School of Law.
A native of Lawrenceville, Georgia, he received his Bachelor of Arts in geography from the University of Georgia where he was in the Honors Program graduating Phi Beta Kappa and received the UGA President’s Award. Holt completed a master’s in city planning from the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech graduating with honors. He holds a PhD from Yale University with a focus on urban and cultural sociology as well as a JD in environmental and energy law from Vermont Law School where he was a Schweitzer Fellow with Dartmouth College.
Holt started his planning career while at Georgia Tech working on the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta with Central Atlanta Progress and the Atlanta Community Design Center. He served as a community planner with the National Capital Planning Commission in Washington, D.C. on the 2050 Monumental Core Plan updates of the 1791 L’Enfant and 1902 McMillan Plans for the national capital. While at Vermont Law School, he interned with the Institute for Energy and the Environment and the Vermont Public Service Commission.
Prior to coming to Samford, Holt served as the program coordinator for Birmingham-Southern College’s (BSC) Urban Environmental Studies Program as well as co-chair for the Architectural Studies major. Also, Holt redeveloped the curriculum to re-establish the sociology program. Through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s College/Underserved Community Partnership Program (CUPP), he collaborated with Bessemer, Alabama to develop engaged learning programs for site remediation and redevelopment as well as an ethnographic industrial history community data base of citizens’ videos. BSC recognized Holt with the Whetstone Award for outstanding junior faculty and Randall Award for student organization advising.
He has edited two volumes, Urban Areas and Global Climate Change and From Sustainable to Resilient Cities: Global Concerns/Urban Efforts. He published research on the U.S. EPA’s Collaborative Problem Solving Model in the 35th Avenue North Birmingham Superfund site. His new work focuses on the branding of post-Civil Rights American Cities and environmental justice issues with the U.S. EPA Superfund sites including a proposal to reinterpret causation in environmental liability to follow military protocols used in settlements from Agent Orange in the Vietnam Era to the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune drinking water issues today.
Holt is active with professional organizations including the Urban Affairs Association (UAA) and American Sociological Association’s (ASA) Community & Urban Sociology Section (CUSS). He served as UAA Program Committee for the 52nd Annual Conference and serves as the Early Career Workshops Coordinator.
Degrees
- JD, Vermont Law School
- PhD, Yale University
- MCP, Georgia Institute of Technology
- BA, University of Georgia
Publications: Books
From Sustainable to Resilient Cities: Global Concerns/Urban Efforts. 2014. Editor. Vol. 15. Research in Urban Studies. Bingley, UK: Emerald.
Urban Areas and Global Climate Change.2012. Editor. Vol. 12. Research in Urban Studies. Bingley, UK: Emerald.
Publications: Articles and Book Chapters
Holt, William. 2021. “Shaking Off the Rust in the American South: Deindustrialization, Abandonment, & Revitalization in Bessemer, Alabama.” In James J. Connolly, Dagney G. Faulk, & Emily J. Wornell, eds. Vulnerable Communities: Research, Policy, and Practice in Small Cities. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Holt, William. 2020. “Hidden in Plain Site: Public Perceptions of Environmental Justice in the 35th Avenue North Birmingham Superfund Site.” Vermont Journal of Environmental Law 20:4, pp.357-82.
Holt, William. 2018. “Planned to Fail: Creating the Global South in American South Communities.” In Kevin Archer and Kris Bezdecny, eds. Handbook of Emerging 21st Century Cities. Northampton, MA: Elgar.
Harland, Sharon; David N. Pellow; J. Timmons Roberts; Shannon Bell; William Holt; and Joane Nagel. 2015. Chapter 5: Climate Justice and Inequality in Climate Change and Society. New York: Oxford University Press.
Holt, William. 2014. “Do You Know What It Means to Rebuild New Orleans? Cultural Sustainability after Disaster. In From Sustainable to Resilient Cities: Global Concerns/Urban Efforts. Vol. 15. Research in Urban Studies. Bingley, UK. Emerald.
Holt, William. 2012. “The Impacts of Climate Change on Cities.” In Urban Areas and Global Climate Change. Vol. 12. Research in Urban Studies. Bingley, UK. Emerald.
Holt, William. 2010. “Gwinnett Goes Global: The Changing Images of American Suburbia.” 2010. In Suburbanization in a Global Society. Eds. M. Clapson and R. Hutchinson. Vol. 10. Research in Urban Studies. Bingley UK: Emerald.
Holt, William. 2003. “Urban Renewal in the Model City” Contexts. Vol. 2, No. 4. Fall.
