Paavo Monkkonen
Research Interests: Housing Policy, Land Use Planning, Segregation, Local Politics
Overcoming political challenges to the urban environmental transition: housing, mobility, and equalizing access to opportunity
Political opposition to changes in the built environment, especially housing densification and mobility infrastructure, slows progress towards urban sustainability. This project will compare how structures of public input affect decisions in three cities–Paris, Los Angeles, and Stockholm–to assess the role of avenues for expression, like public hearings or appeals. The case studies represent places with very different relationships between the residents and the state, and places with wide variation in local climate action. Paris, especially, has recently transformed many of its streets, whereas progress in Los Angeles on bike infrastructure is stalled by local opposition. The project’s main question how much this difference results from the resident’s preferences or the structure of local decision making. Thus, the case studies will analyze changes in the urban environment, the processes for local participation in urban planning, interviews of public officials, and surveys of residents. Interviewing elected officials will reveal how they understand constituents’ preferences, their role in executing these preferences, and their ability to carry out needed changes. Surveys will use conjoint analysis to reveal people’s attitudes towards projects that make their cities more sustainable in these varied contexts. In combination, the two methods will show the alignment between preferences and political action.
Paavo Monkkonen is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Paavo researches and writes on the ways policies—ranging from large-scale housing finance programs to local land use regulations–shape urban development and social segregation in cities around the world. He is especially interested in comparative research, and has studied policies in Argentina, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United States. His research has been funded by organizations like the MacArthur Foundation, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In 2019, he launched the UCLA Latin American Cities Initiative. Much of his recent research focus has been California’s housing crisis and the implementation of the state’s fair share housing planning process.