John S. Adams
1938 - 2024
John S. Adams, or JSA to those who knew him, was an urban economic geographer at the University of Minnesota. As a researcher, he studied the relationships between housing markets and policy, land use, and transportation in North American metropolitan areas. As a teacher, he taught classes on urban economics, transportation and land use, geography of the Twin Cities, and regional courses on North America and Russia. As a mentor, he advised dozens of graduate students, supporting them through research assistantships, an openness to whatever topic they chose to study, and continuing to be a source of guidance well after graduation. As an administrator, he was happy to take his turn as Department Chair (multiple times), President of the AAG, the first director and later the associate dean of the Humphrey School of Planning, and wherever else he was needed.
While JSA’s academic studies began in economics, he, like so many of us, took a class in geography and was hooked. After finishing his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota, he taught at Penn State for three years before returning to Minnesota, where he taught for an astonishing 37 years. He spent time at many other institutions as a visiting scholar during that time, including UC Berkeley, Bank of America world headquarters, Moscow State University, and the U.S. Military Academy. During this time, he investigated housing policy and economics across North America, as well as developing a history of the quantitative revolution in urban geography.
Much of his research focused on the Twin Cities, including the Transportation and Regional Growth Study, funded by the Minnesota Department of Transportation, the Metropolitan Council of the Twin Cities, and the Center for Transportation Studies — a somewhat unlikely coalition to support research in the social sciences but reflective of JSA’s integrative approach to understanding the world. He was keen on producing research that was relevant to policymakers and planners in the region — many of whom he also had as students. The Center for Transportation Studies on the University of Minnesota campus established an award in 2009 in his honor for graduate students in planning and public policy, reflecting his contributions to interdisciplinary collaboration and policy-relevant research.
JSA was endlessly curious about the world. He was always asking people to share their stories with him, whether it was where they were from, where their family was from, or what they were interested in. He taught his graduate students that one of the best ways to do research was simply to ask people what they did for a living or what they thought of something, especially when it came to people like government bureaucrats whose stories often weren’t told. Field work was also essential: part of graduate student orientation at Minnesota was a field trip around the Twin Cities led by JSA and Professor Judith Martin, introducing students to their new home through a geographic lens. His willingness to strike up a conversation with anyone was especially on display during the field courses that he led across North America, Europe, and Russia for graduate and undergraduate students, along with his dedication to service no matter where he might be:
On a 1995 field study to cities of the U.S. Midwest and Southeast, it had been another long day of studying urban structure and change. Nobody knew why JSA stopped the van in the left turn lane of a busy thoroughfare during afternoon rush hour and got out of the driver’s seat, until we saw him dragging a fallen streetlight over to the curb and out of the lanes of oncoming traffic. Horns were honking, people were gawking, and we were kind of concerned that he might get electrocuted. But the image was perfect — “Citizen Adams,” in his signature plaid short-sleeve shirt and khakis, taking charge of Nashville’s “crumbling infrastructure” and “apathetic citizenry.”
Last but not least, JSA cared deeply about the institutions of higher education and of geography, arguing that higher education helps build a healthy foundation for the future of our country. He was a strong advocate for regular participation in departmental life and contributions beyond research and teaching. He argued for regular attendance at weekly departmental colloquia, in part to be well informed on the state-of-the-art of geographic research, but also to connect with students and faculty across the department as well as visiting speakers. Similarly, he advocated regular attendance at both national and regional AAG meetings, to hear about cutting edge research but also to learn about the state of the discipline in other departments and as a whole. He enjoyed introducing current and former students to each other, keeping the network of Minnesota alumni active through in-person meetings and also his family newsletter (always sent via the USPS). His sense of humor, concern for students and colleagues, and deep commitment to service are as much his legacy as his research and teaching, for geographers across Minnesota and around the world.
This memorial was prepared by Julie Cidell, Professor and Department Head of the Department of Geography & GIS at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Laura Smith, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Macalester College.