Professor, Urban Studies and Planning
Lisa K. Bates, PhD is Professor in the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning and in Black Studies at Portland State University . She is the Portland Professor in Innovative Housing Policy. Her scholarship focuses on housing and community development policy and planning, neighborhood change, and displacement. Recognition of her work includes the 2019 UAA-SAGE Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award and the 2016 Dale Prize for scholarship advancing community self-determination and racial justice.
Dr. Bates’ research and practice includes deep engagements with community-based organizations working towards racial justice and housing rights, including Portland’s anti-displacement coalition. She also has an advisory partnership with local government partners including research, planning, and policy formulation and evaluation. Her work to describe gentrification and displacement in Portland has been widely cited and used as a model for planning to address neighborhood change. Dr. Bates leads the Evicted in Oregon team, which tracks eviction cases, evaluates public policy, and uses community-based methods to develop insights about the practices and procedures of eviction as a mechanism of displacement. She is also collaborating with Dr. Amie Thurber to evaluate Portland’s ground-breaking policy to support housing opportunities for families displaced over multiple generations of urban renewal.
Dr. Bates has developed a creative practice at the intersection of art inquiry, urban planning, and radical Black geographic thought. This work includes the award-winning Imagine Black Futures (formerly PAALF) People’s Plan, which asked “what would it be like if your city, neighborhood, community loved Black people?” and the art exhibition and social emergency response center HERE|Humboldt, developed as part of the collective Black Life Experiential Research Group. She is currently co-leading participatory action research and abolition futures visioning with Black Oregonians. She was awarded a Creative Capital fellowship to develop this practice of scholarship and cultural organizing towards new visions of Black history, present, and possibility.
Her B.A. is in Political Science from the George Washington University, and she holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to joining PSU’s faculty, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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About Lisa K. Bates
Lisa K. Bates, PhD is Professor in the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning and in Black Studies at Portland State University . She is the Portland Professor in Innovative Housing Policy. Her scholarship focuses on housing and community development policy and planning, neighborhood change, and displacement. Recognition of her work includes the 2019 UAA-SAGE Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award and the 2016 Dale Prize for scholarship advancing community self-determination and racial justice.
Dr. Bates’ research and practice includes deep engagements with community-based organizations working towards racial justice and housing rights, including Portland’s anti-displacement coalition. She also has an advisory partnership with local government partners including research, planning, and policy formulation and evaluation. Her work to describe gentrification and displacement in Portland has been widely cited and used as a model for planning to address neighborhood change. Dr. Bates leads the Evicted in Oregon team, which tracks eviction cases, evaluates public policy, and uses community-based methods to develop insights about the practices and procedures of eviction as a mechanism of displacement. She is also collaborating with Dr. Amie Thurber to evaluate Portland’s ground-breaking policy to support housing opportunities for families displaced over multiple generations of urban renewal.
Dr. Bates has developed a creative practice at the intersection of art inquiry, urban planning, and radical Black geographic thought. This work includes the award-winning Imagine Black Futures (formerly PAALF) People’s Plan, which asked “what would it be like if your city, neighborhood, community loved Black people?” and the art exhibition and social emergency response center HERE|Humboldt, developed as part of the collective Black Life Experiential Research Group. She is currently co-leading participatory action research and abolition futures visioning with Black Oregonians. She was awarded a Creative Capital fellowship to develop this practice of scholarship and cultural organizing towards new visions of Black history, present, and possibility.
Her B.A. is in Political Science from the George Washington University, and she holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to joining PSU’s faculty, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
| Present | Associate Professor, Portland State University ‐ Urban Studies and Planning | |
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| Present | Director, Portland State University ‐ Center for Urban Studies | |
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| Fellow, Portland State University ‐ Institute for Sustainable Solutions | ||
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Disciplines
Research Interests
Honors and Awards
- Dale Prize for Excellence in Scholarship in Urban Planning
Contact Information
Urban Center 370E
Email:
