Alejandra Reyes is Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at University of California, Irvine’s School of Social Ecology. Previously, she was the 2018-2019 Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance at University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. She received her B.A. in Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Community and Regional Planning at the University of Texas at Austin. Chair of the Global Planning Educators interest group within the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, Reyes has published over a dozen peer-reviewed articles and journal editorials, along with several book chapters, commentaries, and research reports.
Reyes research centers on questions of governance around housing policy, finance, production, and access, highlighting the critical influence of sociopolitical and economic factors on these processes and the importance of addressing related inequities. She is currently examining the political economies of racially concentrated areas of affluence in California, those with notably high median incomes and an over-representation of non-Hispanic white population with respect to their regions. Her published research on this topic offers an in-depth analysis of the evolution of housing policies and politics in Southern California at a period of reform and state-level intervention, shedding light on the challenges and prospects for promoting regionally balanced development and housing access in exclusionary geographies. Despite contention between different government levels and localities, the leverage of reactionary local politics is weakening. Jurisdictions are facing pressure to address the housing needs of increasingly diverse and mobilized constituents, opting to roll back initiatives that restrict housing development, implement or expand inclusionary zoning ordinances, establish housing funds, strengthen tenant protections and low-income housing provision, among other strategies.
Reyes’ prior research has underscored the different ways in which countries have managed, promoted, or restricted housing financialization, along with ‘the margin of autonomy that nations and societies can have in shaping and framing particular policies despite underlying structural conditions.’ Much of her work has also highlighted the implications of financialization processes in Mexico – surmounting mortgage and household debt, the clustering of vacant and abandoned housing, inadequate access to infrastructure, services and economic opportunities, and ultimately, the reproduction of poor housing conditions. The mitigation of financial risks for the construction and financial sectors by public institutions in prior decades reproduced and intensified socioeconomic and political inequities, although civic and political efforts are increasingly pushing for policy changes and better living conditions.
Contact: lreyesru@uci.edu