I study urban economic development, workforce development and local labor markets
with the goal of informing public policy that supports employment opportunities, human
capital development and job mobility for people across the educational attainment
spectrum. I have written on the planning dilemmas inherent in decision-making on
industrial land use, on the history and politics of community development, on the role of
labor unions in the development of workforce skills and on the use of job linkage
programs in the context of real estate-led urban economic development. Planning
departments, economic development agencies, redevelopment authorities, labor unions and
community-based development organizations all help shape metropolitan economies and urban
neighborhoods. I study the complex, often contentious relationships among these
institutions and their relationship to the private economy,linking their behavior and
performance to social and economic outcomes. 

I teach Urban Economics in the core curriculum for the Masters in City Planning at UPenn
as well as several courses in the Community and Economic Development curriculum
concentration.

Economic Development Policy and Politics

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Remaking New York City: Can Prosperity Be Shared and Sustainable? (with Brad Lander), Departmental Papers (City and Regional Planning) (2004)

Changes in the organization of global economic activity – in particular, the ascendance of services...

 

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How the Far West Side Will be Won, The Architect's Newspaper (2004)
 

Local Labor Markets and Workforce Development

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Building in Good Jobs: Linking Workforce Development with Real Estate-Led Economic Development (with Jeremy Reiss and Margaret Stix), Departmental Papers (City and Regional Planning) (2006)
Municipal governments in the U.S. are increasingly devoting public resources to the redevelopment of abandoned,...
 

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Technology and Urban Labor Markets in the United States, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (2001)
 

planning and community development history

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Expanding Planning’s Public Sphere: STREET Magazine, Activist Planning and Community Development in Brooklyn, NY 1971-75, Journal of Planning Education and Research (2008)
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, a paradigm of activist planning or critical city...
 

Urban theory and pedagogy

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Keeping Counterpublics Alive in Planning, Searching for the Just City: Debates In Urban Theory and Practice (2009)