Alex Marshall, a journalist, is the author of How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl and The Roads Not Taken (University of Texas 2000), Beneath the Metropolis: The Secret Lives of Cities (Perseus 2006), and the forthcoming The Surprising Design of Market Economies (Texas 2012). He is a Senior Fellow at the Regional Plan Association in New York and editor of its urban planning newsletter, Spotlight on the Region. He is the Transportation columnist for Governing magazine. He has taught about infrastructure at the New Jersey School of Architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark. Marshall's work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Metropolis Magazine, Planning Magazine, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Slate, Salon, Architecture, Revue Urbanisme and many other publications. A native of Norfolk and a graduate of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, in 1999-2000 Marshall was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He was a staff writer for The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk from 1988-1997. He speaks on urbanism and other issues around the country and abroad.