He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2000. His history of the Chicago Housing Authority entitled Blueprint for Disaster: The Unraveling of Chicago Public Housing (University of Chicago Press, 2009) won the 2009 Lewis Mumford Prize from the Society of American City and Regional Planning History for the best book in North American Planning History in 2008-2009. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley and his B.A. from Williams College.