Laura Wolf-Powers

Laura Wolf-Powers is Professor of Urban Policy and Planning in the School of Arts and Sciences  at City University of New York (CUNY) Hunter College and a member of the faculty in Earth & Environmental Sciences at the CUNY Graduate Center. She teaches economic development, real estate development, community planning, and political economy. Her work has been published in numerous urban studies and planning journals including Regional Studies, Planning Theory and Practice, Journal of the American Planning Association, and International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Her book University City: History, Race, and Community in the Era of the Innovation District, which illuminates the conflicting claims on value that accompany academic institutions’ sponsorship of innovation-oriented development in campus-adjacent neighbourhoods, was published in September 2022 by the University of Pennsylvania Press. Professor Wolf-Powers is an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Planning Association and currently serves as co-editorial director of Metropolitics.org, an online journal of public scholarship on cities and urban politics. She is a steering committee member of the Western Queens Community Land Trust in New York City. Her present research investigates the political economy of land valuation and property taxation with an eye to creating policies that curb rent-seeking and retain socially created land value for the public.