Biography
Andrew Greenlee is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. His work focuses on the intersection of housing policy, community development, and social equity in planning. As an expert in low-income housing policy and federal low-income housing support programs, Dr. Greenlee’s research has explored how the governance of such programs at the local and regional level impact outcomes for low-income households. His work also explores household-level and collective dynamics of residential mobility and neighborhood change, with a particular focus on forced displacement due to such diverse factors as urban renewal, eviction, and climate change.
Andrew received a PhD in Urban Planning and Policy (2012) from University of Illinois at Chicago. He also holds a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from University of Iowa (2006), and a Bachelors degree in English and Sociology from Grinnell College (2004).
Research Interests
My current research falls broadly into two areas – residential mobility and neighborhood change, the local and regional governance of poverty and inequality. My goal across all of this work is to use planning tools and knowledge to better articulate the equity implications of policy and governance. To do this, I work at a range of geographic scales, and work with both qualitative interview data and quantitative spatial data visualization and analysis techniques. My vision is to tell compelling stores that connect individual experiences to broader patterns of change observed across space and over time.
Residential Mobility and Neighborhood Change
This research focuses on understanding the determinants of residential mobility and neighborhood choices, with the goal of evaluating how moving (or staying) matters for the economic and social wellbeing of households. This work also connects these household-level decisions back to what gets described over time as neighborhood change. This research focuses in particular on low-income households participating in the Federal Housing Choice Voucher Program and in Public Housing. This work also connects individual mobility behavior to push and pull factors including climate change, natural disasters, eviction, and other factors related to household instability.
Local and Regional Governance of Poverty and Household Instability
This research examines the interrelationship between housing instability and poverty. This work spans several projects examining the determinants of instability in the United States, as well as work in several international contexts. Work in the United States focuses on the policy and governance implications of a range of interventions including the impact of fair housing enforcement on school integration, and the role of new markets tax credit developments in spurring neighborhood change. Work outside the United States focuses on the implications of the uneven geography of humanitarian assistance on Syrian refugees in Lebanon, and on the influence of digital financial inclusion tools on financial inclusion in Africa and Asia.
Education
- Ph.D. University of Illinois at Chicago, 2012
- MS, University of Iowa, 2006
- BA, Grinnell College, 2004
Courses Taught
- UP 101: Introduction to City Planning
- UP 301: Capstone Preparation – Social Justice
- UP 470: Shrinking Cities
- UP 473: Housing and Urban Policy
- UP 494-AG: Neighborhood Analysis
Additional Campus Affiliations
Professor, Urban and Regional Planning
Director of Graduate Studies, Urban and Regional Planning
Professor, Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies
Professor, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Affiliate, Center for Social & Behavioral Science
Recent Publications
Balachandran, S., & Greenlee, A. (2024). Examining Spatial Opportunity for Local Action: From Theory to Practice. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 44(3), 1516-1528. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456x221088984
Layser, M. D., & Greenlee, A. J. (2024). STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY AND THE NEW MARKETS TAX CREDIT. Duke Law Journal, 73(4), 801-869.
Fang, F., Greenlee, A. J., He, Y., & Eutsler, E. (2023). Evaluating the quality of street trees in Washington, D.C. Implications for environmental justice. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, 85, Article 127947. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2023.127947
García, I., Jackson, A., Greenlee, A. J., & Chrisinger, B. (2023). The people that represent the region and the year of change. In Routledge Companion to Professional Awareness and Diversity in Planning Education (pp. 26-34). Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003254003-4
Greenlee, A. J. (2023). Follow the Money (Deeper)—A Clinical Diagnosis of Opportunity Hoarding. Housing Policy Debate, 33(4), 806-811. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2023.2173984