About Bumsoo Lee
Biography
Bumsoo Lee is Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, and also holds a courtesy appointment in the Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment (iSEE). His research interest is in the spatial organization of urban areas and sustainable transportation systems. He investigates how technological development and demographic dynamics are reshaping urban structure, how land use and transportation interact, and how smart growth policies promote sustainable and equitable transportation. He currently serves as an Associate Editor of Journal of Planning Education and Research (JPER).
He received his PhD in Planning from the University of Southern California (USC) in 2006. He also holds a master’s degree in Urban Planning from Seoul National University, Korea and bachelor’s degree in Urban Planning from HanYang University, Korea. Before his doctoral study at USC, he worked as a research associate at Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements (KRIHS) for three years.
Education
- PhD in Planning, School of Policy, Planning, and Development, University of Southern California, 2006
- Master of City Planning, Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, 1996
- Bachelor of Science, Department of Urban Planning, Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea, 1994
Research and publications
Ongoing and upcoming research
Ongoing and Upcoming
His recent and ongoing research projects include studies on transit ridership, transit deserts, parking reform, and transportation triggered gentrification.
- Lee, Bumsoo (PI) and Lindsay Braun (Co-PI). 2024-2027. “Identifying and Minimizing Illinois’ Transit Deserts and Gray Areas”. Illinois Center for Transportation (ICT), Illinois Department of Transportation IDOT R27-272, $299,771.
- Braun, Lindsay (PI), Jesus Barajas, and Bumsoo Lee (co-PI). 2020-2021. “Transit Ridership Trends in Downstate Illinois”. Illinois Department of Transportation, $312,250.
Selected publications
Lee, Bumsoo and Sungwon Lee. 2025. Toward greener transit: Carbon-efficient density thresholds for public transit vs. private vehicles. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment 140: 1-15.
Sohoni, Srirang and Bumsoo Lee. 2025. Parking the minimum parking requirement: Evidence from Nine U.S. cities. Journal of Planning Education and Research.
Lee, Bumsoo, Lindsay M. Braun, Jesus M. Barajas, Amanda Merck, and Kyuhyun Lee. 2025. Who rides the bus in small cities in the U.S. Midwest? Journal of Public Transportation 27: 1-12.
Wang, Yiyuan, Bumsoo Lee, and Andrew Greenlee. 2024. The role of smart growth in residential location choice: Heterogeneity of location preferences in the Chicago region. Journal of Planning Education and Research 44 (2): 766-783.
Sohoni, Srirang and Bumsoo Lee. 2024. After the minimum parking requirement: Parking reform in a small university city. Journal of the American Planning Association 91 (3): 471-485.
Lee, Yongsung and Bumsoo Lee. 2022. What’s eating public transit in the United States? Reasons for declining transit ridership in the 2010s. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 157: 126-143.
Liu, L., T. Hwang, S. Lee, Y. Ouyang, B. Lee, S. J. Smith, C. Tessum, J. Marshall, F. Yan, and K. Daenzer. 2019. Health and climate impacts of future United States land freight modelled with global-to-urban models. Nature Sustainability 2 (2): 105-112.
Baker, Dwayne M. and Bumsoo Lee. 2019. How Does Light Rail Transit (LRT) Impact Gentrification? Evidence from Fourteen US Urbanized Areas. Journal of Planning Education and Research 39 (1): 35-49.
Lee, Sungwon and Bumsoo Lee. 2014. The influence of urban form on GHG emissions in the US household sector. Energy Policy 68: 534-549.
Teaching and advising
Classes taught
- PPD 358: Urban & Regional Economics, USC
- UP 116: Analytical Planning Methods
- UP 316: Urban Informatics II
- UP 431: Urban Transportation Modeling
- UP 460: Urban Transportation and Land Use Policy
- UP 409: Economics for Planners
- UP 505: Urban and Regional Analysis
Students advised
PhD in Regional Planning
- M. Tanvir Hossain Shubho (2022): Impacts of ride-hailing services on travel behavior. [Currently Transportation Planner at California Department of Transportation (Caltrans)]
- Sungwon Lee (2015): The Role of Urban Spatial Structure in Reducing VMT and GHG Emissions. [Currently assistant professor at Gangneung-Wonju National University, Korea]
- Joanna Ganning (2010): “Growth effects of urban-rural intra-regional linkages on counties and communities in the U.S.” [Currently associate professor at Cleveland State University]
Master of Urban Planning
- Cole Filges
- Leela Bhairy
- Josh Riebe
- Dakshinya Banju
- Aditya Sharma
- Luke Talavera
- Ethan Garcia
- Srirang Sohoni
- Siddhesh Kudale
- Sharanya Varma
- Simran Shah
- Pranjali Shah
- Anshita Kandhari
- Leo Torres Beltran
- Emily Hutchinson
- Hannah Galkin
- Sungyo Lee
- Shuvangkor Shusmoy Roy
- Huiya Yang
- Rebecca Martin
- Anusha Mishra
- Rafsun Mashraky
- Bincy Koshy
- Hyunsik Choi
- Amanda Wolfe
- Mahmood Al-Wahaibi
- Junghwan Kim
- Yiyuan (Gavin) Wang
- Ziqi Liu
- Sukanya Sharma
- Geoff Gray-Cornelius
- Gurdeep Kaur
- Shuake Wuzhati
- Myke Griseta
- Mariane Shen Yin Lin
- Laitian Zhong
- Evan Alvarez
- Zherui Li
- Alex Norr
- Prateek Mittal
- Daniel Quan Chak Tse
- Drew Awsumb
- Kerilyn Gallagher
- Yongsung Lee
- Dan Begert
- Seth Gunnerson
- David Massey