Dr. Maxwell Hartt
Associate Professor, MCIP, RPP
School of Urban and Regional Planning
Department of Geography and Planning
On leave 2025-2026.
Maxwell Hartt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning and the Director of the Population and Place Research Lab. He is spending the 2025-2026 academic year as a Craig Dobbin Scholar at University College Dublin, Ireland and the Fulbright Canada Research Chair at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, USA.
Dr. Hartt’s research focuses on the geographies urban and regional population change, the associated implications for planning and policy, and the potential of embedding positivity and play into the built and social fabric of communities. He is the Principal Investigator of New Urban Era, Aging Playfully, France-Canada Geographies of ShrinkAge, and Co-Principal Investigator of City of Bots and the Student Housing Observatory. He has published 3 books and over 50 peer reviewed journal articles (for full list see Curriculum Vitae). He is a two-time Fulbright Scholar, Regional Studies Association Routledge Early Career Award winner, and in 2017 was named by the Order of Canada as 1 of 50 Canadians under the age of 35 guiding the future of Canada.
Dr. Hartt is a Registered Professional Planner, Member of the Canadian Institute of Planners, Associate Editor of the Journal of Planning Education and Research, and on the Editorial Boards of the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, International Planning Studies, and the Journal of Global Ageing. He is on the Management Board of the Shrinking Cities International Research Network, an Affiliated Researcher in the Health, Access + Planning (HAP) Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University, a Member of the AESOP-ACSP Collaborative Initiatives Committee, and on the Advisory Board of the Area Level Index of Age Diversity (ALIAD) Project at the University of Leicester.
Credentials:
PhD Planning, University of Waterloo
MSc Systems Science, University of Ottawa
Hon. BSc Mathematics, Saint Francis Xavier University
Links:
Representative Publications (for full list see Curriculum Vitae)
Books
Hartt, M. (2026). Aging Playfully: Reimagining the Possibilities of Age-Friendly Community Planning. University of British Columbia Press.
Hartt, M. (2021). Quietly Shrinking Cities: Canadian Urban Population Loss in an Age of Growth. University of British Columbia Press.
Hartt, M., S. Biglieri, M. Rosenberg and S. Nelson (eds). (2021). Aging People, Aging Places: Experiences, Opportunities and Challenges of Growing Older in Canada. Policy Press.
Journal Articles
Biglieri, S. & M. Hartt. (2024). The ‘Double Risk’ of Aging: Examining Vulnerability and (Un)supportive Built Environments in Canadian Cities. Canadian Journal on Aging, 43 (1): 99-113.
Fernandez, B. & M. Hartt. (2022). Growing Shrinking Cities. Regional Studies, 56 (8): 1308-1319.
Hartt, M. (2019). The Prevalence of Prosperous Shrinking Cities. Annals of American Association of Geographers, 109 (5): 1651-1670.
Hartt, M. (2018). The Diversity of North American Shrinking Cities. Urban Studies, 55 (13): 2946-2959.
Hartt, M., G. DeVerteuil & R. Potts. (2023). Age-Unfriendly by Design: Built Environment and Social Infrastructure Deficits in Suburban Melbourne. Journal of the American Planning Association, 89 (1): 31-44.
Hartt, M. & E. Vincent. (2024). Older Adult Perceptions of Play and Play-Enabling Public Space. Cities & Health, 8 (6): 1017-1030.
Supervision:
I am available to supervise students at both the Master’s (Geography or Planning) and Doctoral (Geography) levels. Please review the “Interested in Joining the Lab?” page on the Population and Place Research Lab website if you are interested in pursuing graduate research in any of the following topics:
- Shrinking cities
- Economic decline and/or transformation
- Age-friendly communities
- Play, ludic, and fun geographies/planning