Resume and papers available here...
Click on photo for explanation...
The Professional area of my web site contains my resume, a biographical note, a professional profile (the latter geared mainly to US-based consulting; I am in fact more involved with the developing world right now, and my World Bank format cv is also available), and samples of my work. Please feel free to check with me at richmond@alum.mit.edu if you have any questions.
My recent interests have leaned heavily towards problems of developing and managing transport infrastructure in developing countries. I taught for two years at Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand, where I promoted innovation in teaching masters and doctoral students transportation planning relevant for developing country environments, and conducted research aimed at understanding the transportation planning and policy processes in Bangkok and Singapore. I was the subject of a feature in the October 17, 2003 AIT Newsletter, where you can read about the priorities of my teaching. I have written up my teaching experiences in an article in the International Education Journal Vol. 8, no. 1, 2007, 1-29 on Bringing Critical Thinking to the Education of Developing Country Professionals.During May 2007, I was an expert advisor on transport policy to the Government of Singapore. I presented a paper about Singaporean policy issues, Transporting Singapore — The Air-conditioned Nation at the World Conference on Transport Research at Berkeley in June 2007, and it is also forthcoming in Transport Reviews.
Following the Singapore assignment, I became Transport Advisor to the Government of Mauritius. In September 2006, my approach was successful in breaking more than a decade of stalemate in Mauritian transport policy. Funded by the African Development Bank, I brought together stakeholders in a consensus-forming exercise in which I worked to iron out differences and have the group agree on a set of policies they could endorse. Nineteen out of twenty members of the group reached agreement. The results were presented at a Cabinet briefing, and the most important proposal, to create a new Land Transport Authority to integrate transport policy by providing a disciplined coordinated approach which will bring freedom from disharmony and instability, was adopted by the government. I spent a subsequent year assisting the goverment prepare for implementation of policies agreed in the consensus exercize, including working on the specifications and tender processes for projects to create the Land Transport Authority, implement comprehensive reforms in the public bus sector and develop Bus Rapid Transit, and to establish a program for bus fleet renewal.Towards the end of 2008, I worked for the Roads & Transport Agency, Government of Dubai, on the conduct of a tender exercise for privatization of public sector bus operations.
It is hard not to fall in love with Bangladesh, a country of cultured, gentle and hospitable people which turns out to be one of the most welcoming in the world. I made friends with many faculty and students from Bangladesh when I was teaching in Thailand, and took the opportunity of making good use of some spare time in early 2007 by visiting the country. I was hosted generously by many AIT alumni, who made the whole visit one big celebration for me, and also gave lectures at Bangladeshi universities in Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna. I was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and intelligence of the faculty and students. While in Bangladesh, I met a journalist from the Daily Star, on Mother Language Day, one of the most significant occasions of the Bangladeshi calendar, and he asked me to write about the experience. After watching crowds laying flowers on the Shahid Minar memorial, I was sufficiently caught up in the emotion to go back to the Star offices in the middle of the night and start typing A Bangla Language of Government, which was published as an editorial on February 27, 2007.
I also write a great deal about music and the arts in general. I am including below a review of one of the greatest of modern operas, The Silent Prince, by Somtow Sucharitkul.
Transport of Delight — The Mythical Conception of Rail Transit in Los Angeles. This is my doctoral dissertation as kept by the MIT archives. A book based on an updated and revised version was published by the University of Akron Press, January 2005. Review by James Smart in Technology and Culture, July 2005.
The Mythical Conception of Rail Transit in Los Angeles, Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, Vol. 15, No. 4, Winter 1998, 294-320. The article is based on my MIT doctoral dissertation. Read it to tempt yourself to purchase my book!The Private Provision of Public Transport, Summary and Conclusions. Study of the nature of decision-making in determining how transit services are supplied. Examines the role of ideology as against economics in producing outcomes. “...should be required reading for all researchers and practitioners involved in the delivery of urban mass transportation... promises to become the definitive coverage of the current state of affairs in transit privatization in the U.S. at the opening of the 21st century” (review, Journal of the American Planning Association, Autumn 2001). PDF of conclusion provided here may be read but not printed: I recommend reading at 150% for improved legibility. To obtain full work please print and submit this order form. Taubman Center for State and Local Government, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, January 22, 2001. ISBN 0-9709022-0-4.
The Costly Triumph of Ideology. Summarizes some of the major conclusions of The Private Provision of Public Transport (please see above). Sunday Opinion section, Los Angeles Times, January 21, 2001.
MTA Fat, Union Waste Are Both to Blame. Opinion article on the subject of the Los Angeles MTA bus/train drivers strike underway at the time of writing, and on options for organizational reform. Op-ed page, Los Angeles Times, September 29, 2000.
Can Reorganization Tame the MTA Beast? Opinion article on organizational reform at the Los Angeles MTA. Sunday Opinion section, Los Angeles Times, March 3, 2002.
Guest appearance on National Public Radio's The Connection show to discuss just-released report on the future of US rail passenger transportation from the Amtrak Reform Council. February 8, 2002, 11am-12 pm. Above link takes you to web page for show. To begin Real Media stream directly, click this link.
Simplicity and Complexity in Design for Transportation Systems and Urban Forms, Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 17, No. 3, Spring 1998, 220-230. The paper was originaly written for a one-day workshop on “Designing Transport and Urban Forms for the Australia of the 21st Century” held at the Institute of Transport Studies, University of Sydney, on April 30, 1996.
A Whole-System Approach to Evaluating Urban Transit Investments, Transport Reviews. Vol. 21, No. 2, April-June 2001, 141-180. Based on New Rail Transit Investments — A Review, Taubman Center for State and Local Government, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. The full report is available for $20 by e-mailing taubman@harvard.edu.
Transitory Dreams: How New Rail Lines Often Hurt Transit Systems. The Taubman Center Report, Taubman Center for State and Local Government, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1998, 16-17. Short article based on New Rail Transit Investments — A Review (see above). Full report ($20) available by e-mailing taubman@harvard.edu.
Choices for Mobility Enhancement in the Greenbush Corridor — A Review. Taubman Center for State and Local Government, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, October 1, 1999. Donald Schön — A Life of Reflection . Remarks at Special Session in Honor of the Memory of Donald Schön at the conference of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, November 1997. Journal of Planning Literature, Vol. 13, No. 1, August 1998, 3-10. Don was a wonderful clarinettist and I hope he might have been amused by what you are now hearing in the background: A MIDI file of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto I found on the Web. I didn't care for the supplied “orchestration” so I've substituted organ and sitar. Learning from Mel. I also wrote a
memorial article to another of planning's
giants, Melvin Webber. It is one of a collection of
tributes
published in a special issue of the magazine Access (Winter
2006 - 2007) of which Mel
had previously
been such a brilliant editor.
Thought & Action in Planning
— The Case
of Transportation Planning in Los Angeles. Course outline for graduate course
developed by me for teaching at UCLA in 1994. Transportation Geography.
Course outline for undergraduate course developed by me for teaching at
UCLA in 1994.
Review of
Somtow Sucharitkul's The Silent Prince. This is one of the
greatest operas of our age, a work of the most sublime profundity. My review of
the Dec. 5 2012 Bangkok premiere appeared in The Nation on
December 11 2012.
Review of
ASEAN Enchanting Puppets, Chiang Mai, Feb. 22-24 2013 in The
Nation, Feb 28 2013.
Review of
Opera Siam/ Somtow Sucharitkul production of Verdi's Otello,
February 28, 2013. Opera, June 2013.