Akira Drake Rodriguez (University of Pennsylvania) has been selected to receive the 2026 Best Article in the Journal of Race, Ethnicity and the City Award for her paper “Reparative-advocacy planning to address racialized inequities in public school facilities”.
This annual award gives recognition to a paper published in the Journal of Race, Ethnicity and the City that is considered particularly outstanding as a scholarly contribution to the field of urban affairs. Her paper was selected from amongst an international array of articles published in Volume 6 (2025).
AWARD COMMITTEE ASSESSMENT
The article “Reparative-advocacy planning to address racialized inequities in public school facilities” by Akira Drake Rodriguez makes an outstanding contribution to urban affairs scholarship and practice through its rigorous, innovative, and justice-centered examination of school facility planning in Philadelphia. Through a thoughtfully executed participatory action research design, the study illuminates how histories of racialized disinvestment shape contemporary planning processes, particularly in nonwhite and non-affluent neighborhoods.
The paper advances the field by introducing a reparative-advocacy planning framework that moves beyond technocratic, data-driven approaches to explicitly identify and address racialized harms embedded in institutional decision making. By combining methodological rigor, conceptual innovation, and deep engagement with community-based practice in three case studies, the article offers actionable insights for planners, policymakers, and advocates seeking to advance racial equity and accountability in urban governance. Its clarity, accessibility, and demonstrated impact on both scholarship and practice make it a highly deserving recipient of the Best Paper in Journal of Race, Ethnicity and City 2026 Award.
AWARD RECIPIENT BIO
Akira Drake Rodriguez is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design. Her research examines the ways that disenfranchised groups re-appropriate their marginalized spaces in the city to gain access to and sustain urban political power. She is the author of Diverging Space for Deviants: The Politics of Atlanta’s Public Housing, which explores how the politics of public housing planning and race in Atlanta created a politics of resistance within its public housing developments. She is also the lead author of A Green New Deal for K-12 Schools, through her work with the climate + community project. She has received funding from the Spencer Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania’s Environmental Innovation Initiative and Projects for Progress funds to support her work around school facilities planning in Philadelphia public schools. She has been a member of UAA since 2012, and has served on the board since 2020.
AWARD PRESENTATION
The formal presentation of this award will be made at the upcoming International Conference on Urban Affairs in Chicago, Illinois. The theme of this year’s conference is No Little Plans: Realizing Urban Futures in Times of Crisis. The conference will convene 1100+ participants from 55+ countries and representing 20+ fields of study. All award recipients will be formally recognized for their achievements during the Awards and Recognition Program on April 29, 2026; 3:00 – 4:15pm.
AWARD COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Amit Patel, World Bank (Chair); Ryan Good, Eastern Mennonite University; Patricia Posey, University of Chicago; Wenfei Xu, Cornell University
ABOUT THE URBAN AFFAIRS ASSOCIATION
The Urban Affairs Association (UAA) is an international professional organization for 1000+ urban scholars, researchers, policy analysts, & public service providers. UAA is dedicated to creating interdisciplinary spaces for engaging in intellectual and practical discussions about urban life. Through theoretical, empirical, and action-oriented research, UAA fosters diverse activities to understand and shape a more just and equitable urban world.
In addition to hosting an annual conference, UAA sponsors ongoing professional development opportunities; Upsilon Sigma: The Urban Studies Honor Society; and two peer-reviewed journals, the Journal of Urban Affairs and the Journal of Race, Ethnicity and the City. You can find UAA on the web, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Facebook, and X.
Megan Hatch, Elora Lee Raymond, Benjamin Teresa & Kathryn Howell to Receive the 2026 Best Article in The Journal of Urban Affairs Award
Dr. Megan Hatch (Cleveland State University), Seumalu Dr. Elora Lee Raymond (University of Canterbury), Dr. Benjamin Teresa (Virginia Commonwealth University), and Dr. Kathryn Howell (University of Maryland) have been selected to receive the 2026 Best Article in the Journal of Urban Affairs Award for their paper “A data feminist approach to urban data practice: Tenant power through eviction data.”
This annual award gives recognition to a paper published in the Journal of Urban Affairs (during the previous year) that is considered particularly outstanding as a scholarly contribution to the field of urban affairs. The committee selected two articles to receive the award this year.
AWARD COMMITTEE ASSESSMENT
This is a critically important and highly significant meta-analysis that asks—and answers—foundational questions that precede and underpin conventional approaches to data collection and analysis: Where does data come from, whose data matters, for what purposes, and with what results? The authors effectively illustrate their argument in two detailed cases showing how these questions play out. This article should be required reading in every planning theory and planning methods course.
AWARD RECIPIENT BIOS
Megan E. Hatch is an associate professor of urban policy and city management in the Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio. She has a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Public Administration from George Washington University, a Masters of Public Administration (MPA) from Cornell University, and a BA in government from Georgetown University. Dr. Hatch has published over 30 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on the variation of policies within the US federalist system and the effects those disparities have on social equity, individuals, and institutions. Within this theme, she examines three policy areas: rental housing, state preemption of local laws, and equitable development. She is an Associate Editor of Housing Policy Debate and on the editorial boards of Urban Affairs Review, State and Local Government Review, Public Administration, and Administrative Theory & Praxis. SheTwo of our stellar former doctoral students received best paper awards at the 2026 Urban Affairs Association conference: Akira Drake (’14) and Benjamin Teresa (’15) is also a board member of Cleveland’s Fair Housing Center for Rights and Research.
Seumalu Elora Lee Raymond is a Senior Lecturer in Geography in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at University of Canterbury. She holds a PhD in City Planning from Georgia Tech and a BA in History from Brown University. Prior to joining University of Canterbury, she was an Associate Professor in the College of Design at Georgia Tech. Dr. Raymond’s research explores financialization and racialized displacement and dispossession in property markets. She has studied the housing affordability crisis among Pacific Islander communities, the financialization of land in Samoa and the financialization of the oceans of American Samoa.
Dr. Raymond sits on the editorial board of Housing Policy Debate, and has testified before the House Committee on Ways and Means, the House Committee on Financial Services, and presented twice before the White House Domestic Policy Council. She has published articles in Human Progress in Geography, Urban Geography, Cityscape, JPER, the Journal of Urban Affairs, and Housing Policy Debate. Her research has been awarded Best Paper from Housing Policy Debate, and Best Conference Paper from the Journal of Urban Affairs.
Benjamin F. Teresa is Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Studies and Planning at Virginia Commonwealth University, and he holds a PhD in Planning and Policy from Rutgers University. His research examines how housing insecurity is produced through authority, enforcement, and unequal power over tenure relations — work that spans the financialization of rent-regulated housing in New York City, the reemergence of land contracts as instruments of racialized dispossession in Chicago, and eviction as a mechanism of political demobilization in Richmond, Virginia. He is co-founder and director of the RVA Eviction Lab, a community-responsive research center whose data and analysis have supported legal aid attorneys, housing advocates, and policymakers across Virginia in preventing eviction and advancing housing justice. His work has appeared in Urban Geography, Geoforum, Housing Policy Debate, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, and the Journal of Urban Affairs. He is currently completing a book project, Housing after Monopoly, which examines how authority and enforcement over housing tenure produce insecurity across several cases in contemporary American housing markets.
Kathryn Howell is the Director of the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education and an Associate Professor, Urban Studies & Planning Program at the University of Maryland, College Park. Prior to coming to NCSG, she was the co-founder and co-director of the RVA Eviction Lab and an associate professor of Urban and Regional Planning at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Dr. Howell’s research examines displacement, displaceability and policies to address both the historical roots and current challenges of displacement. Specifically, she interrogates the policies, governance structures and roles of tenants and advocacy in the preservation of affordable housing. Further, she investigates ways that redevelopment, implementation and maintenance of cultural landscapes can facilitate or abridge the right to the city for communities of color. Her book, Affordable Housing Preservation in Washington, DC focuses on the ways tenants can be centered in policies and practices that keep housing affordable. As the director of the National Center for Smart Growth, a community-engaged center at UMD, she engages with a range of community partners in government and nonprofit institutions to engage in research, collaborative practice, advocacy and education. Previously, Dr. Howell worked for government housing agencies in the state of Maryland and Washington, DC.
AWARD PRESENTATION
The formal presentation of this award will be made at the upcoming International Conference on Urban Affairs in Chicago, Illinois. The theme of this year’s conference is No Little Plans: Realizing Urban Futures in Times of Crisis. The conference will convene 1100+ participants from 55+ countries, representing 20+ fields of study. All award recipients will be formally recognized for their achievements during the Awards and Recognition Program on April 29, 2026; 3:00 – 4:15pm.
AWARD COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Christian King, University of Central Florida (Chair); Francisca Bogolasky Fliman, Universidad de Chile; Robin Chang, RWTH Aachen University; Kerry Fang, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Elsie Harper-Anderson, Virginia Commonwealth University; Jae Hong Kim, University of California, Irvine; Robert Lake, Rutgers University; Heywood Sanders, University of Texas at San Antonio; Tim Weaver, University at Albany; Lydia Wileden, University of Connecticut; Jordan Yin, Alabama A&M University
ABOUT THE URBAN AFFAIRS ASSOCIATION
The Urban Affairs Association (UAA) is an international professional organization for 1000+ urban scholars, researchers, policy analysts, & public service providers. UAA is dedicated to creating interdisciplinary spaces for engaging in intellectual and practical discussions about urban life. Through theoretical, empirical, and action-oriented research, UAA fosters diverse activities to understand and shape a more just and equitable urban world.
In addition to hosting an annual conference, UAA sponsors ongoing professional development opportunities; Upsilon Sigma: The Urban Studies Honor Society; a book series, Rights to the City, and two peer-reviewed journals, the Journal of Urban Affairs and the Journal of Race, Ethnicity and the City. You can find UAA on the web, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Facebook, and X.