Accordino, John J.

∗ Indicates that a listing has been compiled from secondary sources believed to be reliable, but has not been personally verified for this edition by the author sketched.

PERSONAL: Married Anne-Marie McCartan; children: Joey, Mario. Education: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ph.D. (urban planning), 1987.

ADDRESSES: Office—Virginia Commonwealth University, School of Government and Public Affairs, Box 842028, 923 West Franklin St. 517, Richmond, VA 23284-2008. E-mail—jaccordi@mail1.vcu.edu.

CAREER: Urban planner and educator. Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, associate professor of urban studies and planning.

WRITINGS:

The United States in the Global Economy: Challenges and Policy Choices, American Library Association (Chicago, IL), 1992.

Captives of the Cold War Economy: The Struggle for Defense Conversion in American Communities, Praeger (Westport, CT), 2000.

Also author of reports for state and local government agencies, including Urban Redevelopment Project Financing, with Emil Malizia, Community-based Development: An Idea Whose Time Has Come, and Addressing the Vacant and Abandoned Property Problem: Results of a National Survey, with Gary T. Johnson.

SIDELIGHTS: Urban planning scholar John Accordino focuses his teaching and research on urban economic development policy, urban commercial revitalization, urban economic geography, and community planning practice. Employing computer-based methods for analysis of revitalization projects, Accordino has advised state and local development agencies as well as neighborhood and commercial organizations.

In addition to his academic pursuits and consulting projects, Accordino has also written books. In his 1992 title, The United States in the Global Economy: Challenges and Policy Choices, Accordino examines U.S. industrial, commercial, and economic policies as they relate to foreign-policy issues. Geoffrey J. D. Hewings noted in the Journal of the American Planning Association that Accordino's second book, Captives of the Cold War Economy: The Struggle for Defense Conversion in American Communities, was an attempt to get the state of Virginia to "face the reality that the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process was going to have potentially serious, disruptive impacts on the economic health of several communities in the state."

With the end of the cold war, military scaling back occurred throughout the United States; such defense conversion policies presented both challenges and opportunities to affected communities. Virginia was particularly affected by this change, as it is one of the most "defense-industry dependent states in the U.S.A.," according to Elodie Ranvin, writing in the International Journal of Commerce and Management. While local economies could be hurt by base closures, there were also potential commercial uses for such bases that might offset decreased military spending. In eight chapters, Accordino uses examples from Virginia to explore the dimensions of this two-sided problem. Hewings noted that while Accordino's study is "well-focused," it does not tackle the larger issue of "whether we have an effective way of handling structural change that is sensitive to the needs of both the markets and communities." Ranvin had a more positive assessment, noting that the book would not only appeal to "students of economics," but more importantly to "managers and labor leaders from the industries concerned by this conversion."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice, February, 1993, H. I. Liebling, review of The United States in the Global Economy: Challenges and Policy Choices, p. 1002; December, 2000, E. H. Tuma, review of Captives of the Cold War Economy: The Struggle for Defense Conversion in American Communities, p. 750.

International Journal of Commerce and Management, spring, 2003, Elodie Ranvin, review of Captives of the Cold War Economy, p. 127.

Journal of Economic Literature, June, 2002, Rachel Weber, review of Captives of the Cold War Economy, p. 542.

Journal of the American Planning Association, winter, 2002, Geoffrey J. D. Hewings, review of Captives of the Cold War Economy, p. 112.

ONLINE

Virginia Commonwealth University Web site, http://www.has.vcu.edu/ (July 1, 2004), "John Accordino."