Research Interests

My research and teaching interests are focused on the various dimensions of urban inequality and their connections to governance and planning practice. I study urban violence and insecurity, homelessness and exclusions from housing markets, premium infrastructures, and the formation of new peripheries and informalities. I also examine planning and urban policy responses to these issues through questions of urban politics, including the role of state and non-state actors in mobilizing, negotiating, or contesting planning agendas. At the core of my work is a question about the limits and possibilities of planning to redress socio-spatial injustices and promote more equitable cities. The geographic scope of my research includes both Latin America and Canada.

 I have a special interest in urban planning and social development in Latin American cities. Over the past decade, I have been involved in research projects that examine the use of planning tools to deliver better services and social policies in the region. I have also examined the opportunities and limitations of a comprehensive planning strategy, called social urbanism, aimed to improve transit equity and reduce violence and socio-spatial segregation in Medellín, Colombia. Currently, I am a researcher in a collaborative project that looks at the increasing judicialization of urban planning projects in Bogotá, and the contexts on which urban actors mobilize legal tools and expertise to contest city projects beyond participatory channels.

In my Canada-based research projects, I am the Principal Investigator of a SSHRC-funded project that looks at public engagement and NIMBYism in the planning and siting of homeless shelters and services for vulnerable populations in Toronto. I am also the York University research lead for the StudentDwellTO partnership. In this collaborative project, I investigate the effects of neoliberalism in the student housing sector, the proliferation of unlicensed rooming houses around university campuses, and the territorial stigmatization of low-income post-secondary students, a group that is typically excluded from urban policy discussions and housing affordability debates.