Greg Morrow is the founding executive director of the UCLA MRED program. Previously, he was an associate professor of practice in architecture, founding executive director, and faculty director of UC Berkeley’s Abbey Master of Real Estate Development + Design (MRED+D) program. He was also founding academic director for the MSRE program at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio Business School and the Parker Professor in Metropolitan Growth + Change, a joint appointment at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business and School of Architecture, Planning + Landscape.
Morrow’s research focuses on housing and land use policy. He is known for his scholarship studying the impact of land use on housing supply in Los Angeles. In “The Homeowner Revolution: Democracy, Land Use and the Los Angeles Slow-Growth Movement, 1965-1992,” he explained the origins and impact of Los Angeles’s slow-growth movement that resulted in “planning by resistance,” where well-organized homeowner groups helped direct the future growth of L.A. to predominately low-income, minority communities, which exacerbated spatial disparities between communities. Morrow has also studied the unintended consequences of local policies and ballot initiatives, such as LA’s Measure JJJ, which resulted in an increase in transit-oriented development at the expense of housing supply outside of these areas. His applied research has also focused on municipal policies related to accessory dwelling units (ADUs) / secondary suites, affordable housing policies, and funding mechanisms for value capture and local area improvements.
Morrow has extensive teaching experience in urban + environmental policy, urban design + planning, and real estate development. As a Visiting Assistant Professor in Occidental College’s Urban + Environmental Policy (UEP) program he taught courses in environment + society, sustainable development, community-based research methods, and eco-cities, utopias, and political change. As a teaching fellow in UCLA’s Institute of the Environment + Sustainability, he was involved with the two-quarter undergraduate Global Environment cluster course and led a seminar in sustainable community development. He has taught courses in urban design skills, urban design + development, and planning history/theory and led numerous urban design and development studios at MIT, the University of Calgary, and UC Berkeley. Topics included master plans for the Portlands in Toronto, Downcity in Providence, and Griffintown in Montréal to a new suburb built around health outcomes in Southeast Calgary, revitalizing an industrial corridor in an immigrant community in Northeast Calgary, urban infill projects in Oakland’s Uptown and Coliseum Station, and the transformation of an industrial township into a mixed-use community in Mumbai. He has also led the real estate development independent capstone prep and directed capstone courses at UC Berkeley.
Morrow brings an interdisciplinary approach to real estate development. His professional practice includes institutional architecture, including work at Safdie Architects on the Peabody Essex Museum, Salt Lake City Public Library, and the winning entry for the US Institute of Peace competition. His residential practice work with KCBA Architects includes the restoration of a mid-century villa in rural Québec and new homes in Ohio and Martha’s Vineyard. He has also maintained a development + design and real estate consulting practice in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, focused on small-scale urban infill, small lot housing, and ADUs. He has also been involved with numerous international projects, including a master plan for a portion of postwar Sarajevo, a study to reuse industrial colonia heritage in the Cardener River Valley north of Barcelona, highway adjacent development in the Netherlands, and innovation cluster at the University of Cambridge (UK).
Morrow has also served on the Calgary Planning Commission, ULI LA’s Leadership Council, and LA County’s Homeless Initiative. He has a PhD in urban planning from UCLA Luskin, two masters (city planning and architecture) and an urban design certificate from MIT, and undergraduate and professional architecture degrees from McGill University.