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
Community Benefits Agreements in a Value Capture Context, Value Capture and Land Policies (2012)
Designing an Urban Industrial Future: Philadelphia’s Lower Schuylkill industrial district, Progressive Planning Magazine (2012)
Urban industrial land and land policy: national context, American Planning Association Annual Conference (2010)
Community Benefits Agreements and Local Government: A Review of Recent Evidence, Journal of the American Planning Association (2010)
As community benefits agreements (CBAs) become more common in urban redevelopment, they are generating conceptual...
Local Labor Markets and Workforce Development
Human-capital-centred Regionalism in Economic Development: A Case of Analytics Outpacing Institutions?, Urban Studies (2012)
Drawing on the case of the Delaware Valley Innovation Network, a regional consortium funded under...
Aligning Secondary and Post-Secondary Credentialization with Economic Development Strategy, or If Low Educational Attainment = Poor Metropolitan Competitiveness, what can be done about it? (with Stuart Andreason), .,Preparing Today’s Students for Tomorrow’s Jobs in Metropolitan America (2012)
Human capital-centered regionalism in economic development: The case of Philadelphia’s biosciences sector, Penn Institute for Urban Research White Paper Series on Sustainable Urban Development (2011)
The paper, drawing on a case study of a regional "talent development" consortium in the...
Chains and Ladders: Exploring the Opportunities for Workforce Development and Poverty Reduction in the Hospital Sector (with Marla Nelson), Economic Development Quarterly (2010)
In this article, the authors investigate the potential of hospitals to offer low- and semiskilled...
Reading rival union responses to the localization of technical work in the US telecommunications industry, Environment and Planning A (2007)
planning and community development history
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...