People

Project Leadership

Dr. Susannah Bunce

Co-lead, Affordable Housing Challenge Project

Associate Professor, Human Geography (University of Toronto Scarborough)

Phone: (416) 287-7296
Email: susannah.bunce@utoronto.ca
Academic profile

Biography

My research centres on the role of sustainability in the context of spatial planning, development, and redevelopment practices in urban communities and neighbourhoods. My research examines the actors, interests and motives in the adoption of sustainability principles and practices within urban communities and neighbourhoods and explores socio-environmental discourses, sustainability planning, and strategies for socio-environmental justice and change. I am interested in the local politics of land use, socio-environmental contestations over local spaces – particularly those caused by gentrification – and more hopeful community-based methods for affordable, accessible, and sustainable land stewardship. I examine these processes in cities in Canada, Britain, and the United States.

Research Areas

Urban geography; urban planning; urban environmental issues; urban communities and neighbourhoods; urban community land trusts; urban waterfronts and waterways; community engagement 

Cities of Focus

Toronto; London, UK; Paris, France

Dr. Alan Walks

Co-lead, Affordable Housing Challenge Project

Associate Professor, Geography and Planning (University of Toronto Mississauga)

Phone: (905) 828-3932
Email: alan.walks@utoronto.ca
Academic profile

Biography

My research is primarily concerned with understanding the causes, forms, and consequences of rising urban social and political polarization. Among other things, I have published research looking at urban debtscapes, gentrification, housing policy and homelessness, suburbanization, gated communities, ghetto formation and immigrant segregation, condominium development, automobility, and the political- ideological effects of urban form. My current research project examines the importance of rising household indebtedness, housing (in)affordability, and mortgage-market policies for changing articulations of urban inequality.

Research Areas

Urban social, economic and political inequality; economic restructuring, neighbourhood change and neighbourhood polarization; housing and housing systems;  urban and suburban development; condominium development, gated communities, gentrification

Cities of Focus

Mainly Canadian cities, and cities in other developed nations

Research Assistants

Natasha Cheong 
PhD Candidate, Department of Geography and Planning
tash.cheong@mail.utoronto.ca
Link to profile

Research interests:

  • Alternative conceptual framings and practices in community development
  • Interpersonal and communicative practices in planning
  • Institutional dynamics of affordable housing

Sean Grisdale
PhD Candidate, Department of Geography and Planning
sean.grisdale@mail.utoronto.ca
Link to profile

Research interests:
I am a human geographer trained in critical urban theory and political economy. My interests include: ideologies of the “smart” city; the confluence of platform/digital capitalism and contemporary urban development; gentrification and rent theory; condo-ism and the financialization of housing; the political economy of land and land ownership; neoliberalism and the welfare state; the institutionalization of real estate investing; and urban inequality.

Emily Hawes 
PhD Candidate, Department of Geography and Planning
emily.hawes@mail.utoronto.ca
Link to profile

Research interests:
I am a geographer trained in economic and urban theory. My research interests include housing and mortgage markets, urban development, neighbourhood polarization, debt, wealth and income inequality, FinTech, household financial practices (saving, borrowing, budgeting, investing), societal aging, pensions systems and the welfare state, and ESG and infrastructure investing.

Kuni Kamizaki
PhD Candidate, Department of Geography and Planning
kuni.kamizaki@utoronto.ca
Link to profile

Research interests:
Kuni’s research interests lie at the intersection of neighbourhood change (gentrification and displacement), housing and social/solidarity economy, with a focus on social justice. His doctoral research explores Tokyo’s world city (re)making and developmentalism in the time of nation-wide shrinkage and post-growth Japan. Prior to entering the PhD program, he worked as a community-based planner in the Parkdale neighbourhood in Toronto, where he initiated a range of community development initiatives such as the development of Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust.

Loren March 
PhD Candidate, Department of Geography and Planning
loren.march@mail.utoronto.ca
Link to profile

Research interests:

  • environmental and ecological gentrification
  • more-than-human urban studies
  • queer ecologies
  • geographies of affect

Emily Power
MScPl Candidate, Department of Geography and Planning
emily.power@mail.utoronto.ca

Research interests:

  • Human geography and planning: pension fund investment in housing, property technology, state-led gentrification, critical urban theory
  • Political economy: financialization, class composition, social reproduction theory
  • Social movements: tenant struggles, squatting and occupations
  • Research methods: qualitative methods, scholar-activist research, oral history, power mapping

Laura Vaz-Jones 
PhD Candidate, Department of Geography and Planning
laura.vaz.jones@mail.utoronto.ca
Link to profile

Research interests:

  • Urban theory
  • Right to the city
  • Housing struggles
  • Black geographies
  • Feminist political economy
  • Political ecology

Jeremy Withers
PhD Candidate, Department of Geography and Planning
jeremy.withers@utoronto.ca
Link to profile

Research interests:

  • The role of housing policy in shaping access to affordable housing,
  • The economics of residential development in Canada
  • Land value capture policies.