INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH

Comparative Urban Spatial Structure

Urban spatial structure - the arrangement of different land uses, built and social environment - influences a city’s functioning, how easy it is to navigate, how it grows, and how people interact. This project examines how income inequality maps onto the urban structure of cities internationally.

The first version of the database is available on the Propinquity platform hosted by the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA. In this initial version, data from 6 countries - Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, South Africa, and the United States - are standardized and summarized to ease comparison. Future iterations will add different types of data to expand the set of countries available.

Income Segregation

The level of segregation varies as much within countries as it does across countries. This project aims to advance our understanding of why there is so much variation. The focus is on 1) creating comparable measures of segregation that apply equally well across countries and 2) using these measures to analyze patterns of variation.

This work was featured in the open access Urban Socio-Economic Segregation, which brings together case studies and large N overview. A course using the book is also available online. In combination with my other the projects, I aim to refine the methods for comparing patterns of segregation internationally.

Country Studies

Large data sets tend to compress much information and lose some of the complexity that set cities apart. I balance projects that use a single metric to summarize a region with case studies that enable a deeper dive into the reasons cities are so different. While I have published on China and Mexico, my interest gravitate toward South Africa and the United States.