Aurora Echavarria

/in , , , , /by

Aurora Echavarria is a PhD Candidate in Urban Planning at UCLA. Her current research centers on the intersection of public finance, comparative urban governance, and disparities in urban service and infrastructure provision. Her dissertation explores the politics of property taxation in Mexican municipalities and is supported by the Fulbright-Hays DDRA and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Aurora’s broader research agenda examines the challenges of leveraging land value to fund public services and infrastructure provision. Her research delves into the political and technical limitations that local governments face in implementing adequate revenue collection strategies. In a parallel line of research, she studies fair housing policies as a lens for analyzing inequalities in infrastructure implementation and public spending across neighborhoods.

Prior to joining the PhD program, Aurora worked as a consultant for Mexican local and federal government, as well as international agencies. During this time, she advised governments on transportation, housing, and public finance policy.

Minjee Kim

/in , , , , , , , /by

Minjee Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Urban Planning department at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her research is situated at the intersection of real estate development and urban planning. She writes about land use regulation, large-scale real estate developments, exactions, negotiated developments, and urban public finance. Her goal as a planning scholar is to identify the ways in which planners and policymakers can foster equitable real estate developments.

Her solo-authored works have appeared in high impact planning journals such as the Journal of the American Planning Association, Journal of Planning Literature, and Urban Studies. She has been recognized both nationally and internationally as an emerging expert in US land use regulation and zoning. She served as the U.S. expert on Lincoln Institute’s joint effort with the OECD to promote land-based public finance. She also has been engendering a close working relationship with real estate industry professionals. She served as the chair of the DEI committee for ULI North Florida and is the sole author of the report, Creating Diverse and Inclusive Communities, published by the ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing. Equipped with an understanding of the economics, processes, and politics of real estate development, she sees herself as bridging the real estate and planning fields.

Minjee received a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning and Master’s in City Planning from MIT. During her time in Boston, she worked in the cities of Cambridge and Boston’s planning departments to obtain hands-on planning experience. She was previously an Assistant Professor at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the Florida State University from 2019 to 2024.

Selected Publications:

Kim, M., Garcia, I., Goetz, E., Hanlon, B., Monkkonen, P., Pendall, R., Pfeiffer, D., Reece, J., & Whittemore, A. (2025). Bring Zoning Back into the Planning Curricula. Journal of the American Planning Association.

Kim, M. (2025). From exchange value to social value of real estate development: A Planner’s perspective. Planning Theory.

Kim, M., & Lee, H. (2024). Upzoning and gentrification: Heterogeneous impacts of neighbourhood-level upzoning in New York City. Urban Studies.

Kim, M., Malizia, E., Nelson, M., Wolf-Powers, L., Ganning, J., & Schrock, G. (2024). Real Estate Development and Economic Development Planning Education: Pragmatic Turn or Trojan Horse? Journal of Planning Education and Research.

Kim, M., & Lee, H. (2023). Can U.S. Planned Communities Become Diverse? The case of industry-leading master-planned communities in five metro areas. Journal of Urban Affairs.

Kim, M. (2023). The Case for Mass Upzoning. Housing Policy Debate.

Kim, M. (2023). Infrastructure investments and land value capture: Variations and uncertainties at the frontiers of urban expansion. Town Planning Review.

Kim, M. (2023). Taking Stock of What We Know About Large-Scale Urban Development Projects: A Review of Existing Theoretical Frameworks and Case Studies. Journal of Planning Literature.

Kim, M., & Chapin, T. (2022). Who Benefits from Enterprise Zones? Equity implications gleaned from policy design and implementation regulations. Cities.

Kim, M., & Zhou, T. (2021). Does Restricting the Entry of Formula Businesses Help Mom-and-pop Stores? The case of American towns with unique community character. Economic Development Quarterly.

Kim, M. (2021). How Do Tax-based Revitalization Policies Affect Urban Property Development? Evidence from Bronzeville, Chicago. Urban Studies.

Kim, M. (2020). Negotiation or Schedule-based? Examining the strengths and weaknesses of the public benefit exaction strategies of Boston and Seattle. Journal of the American Planning Association.

Kim, M. (2020). Upzoning and Value Capture: How U.S. local governments use land use regulation power to create and capture value from real estate developments. Land Use Policy.

 

Paavo Monkkonen

/in , , , , , , , , /by

Paavo Monkkonen is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He researches and writes about how policies and markets shape urbanization, social segregation, and housing affordability in cities around the world. His scholarship ranges from studies of large-scale national housing finance programs to analyses of local land use regulations, and uses comparison to derive novel insights. Past projects include studies in Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and the United States.

Professor Monkkonen’s research has been published in outlets such as the Journal of the American Planning Association, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, the Journal of Urban Economics, Urban Studies, World Development, and the Journal of Peasant Studies. He has received research funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Urban Land Institute, the Regional Studies Association, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. He is currently studying the implementation of California’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing law and the social housing system in France.

At UCLA Luskin, Paavo teaches courses on housing policy, land value capture, applied microeconomics, research methods, and global urban segregation. He launched the Latin American Cities Initiative, Ciudades, to develop and deepen knowledge networks among students, educators, and professionals in the arena of urban planning and policy in South, Central, and North America.

Paavo completed a Master of Public Policy at the School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a PhD in City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. He was Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Hong Kong from 2009 to 2012, visiting scholar at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in 2015, visiting researcher at Sciences Po Paris from 2023-2024, and a fellow of the Paris Institute of Advanced Studies from 2024-2025.

LinkedIn profile

Follow him on bsky

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Meaningful Action: Evaluating Local Government Plans to Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing in California. Monkkonen, Paavo, Aaron Barrall, and Aurora Echavarria. 2024. Housing Policy Debate, forthcoming.

Built out cities? A new approach to measuring land use regulation. Monkkonen, Paavo, Michael Manville, and Michael Lens. 2024. Journal of Housing Economics, forthcoming.

Do Land Use Plans Affirmatively Further Fair Housing? Measuring Progress. Monkkonen, Paavo, Michael Lens, Moira O’Neill, Christopher Elmendorf, Greg Preston and Raine Robichaud. 2023. Journal of the American Planning Association, forthcoming.

The Heterogeneous Impacts of Widespread Upzoning: Lessons from Auckland, New Zealand. Cheung, William, and Edward Yiu. 2023. Urban Studies, 61(5), 943-967.

Does Discretion Delay Development? Manville, Michael, Paavo Monkkonen, Shane Phillips, and Nolan Gray. 2022. The Impact of Approval Pathways on Multifamily Housing’s Time to Permit. Journal of the American Planning Association, 89(3): 336-347.

Unwanted Housing: Localism and Politics of Housing Development. Manville, Michael, and Paavo Monkkonen. 2021. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 44(2): 685–700.

Opposition to Development or Opposition to Developers? Experimental Evidence on Attitudes towards New Housing. Monkkonen, Paavo, and Michael Manville. 2019. Journal of Urban Affairs, 41(8): 1123-1141.

Empty Houses across North America: Housing Finance and Mexico’s Vacancy Crisis. Monkkonen, Paavo. 2019. Urban Studies, 57(10): 2080-2097.

Where are property rights worth more? Assessing variation in the value of deeds across cities in Mexico Monkkonen, Paavo. 2016. World Development, 88: 67-78.

Do Strict Land Use Regulations make Metropolitan Areas more Segregated by Income? Michael Lens and Paavo Monkkonen. 2016. Journal of the American Planning Association, 82(1): 6-21.

Land Use Regulations and the Value of Land and Housing: An Intra-Metropolitan Analysis Kok, Nils, Paavo Monkkonen and John M. Quigley. 2014. Journal of Urban Economics, 81(3): 136–148.

Innovative Measurement of Spatial Segregation: Comparative Evidence from Hong Kong and San Francisco. Monkkonen, Paavo and Xiaohu Zhang. 2014. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 47(3): 99-11.

Land Use Regulations, Compliance, and Land Markets in Argentina Monkkonen, Paavo and Lucas Roconi. 2013. Urban Studies, 50(10): 1951-1969.

Housing Finance Reform and Increasing Socioeconomic Segregation in Mexico Monkkonen, Paavo. 2012. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 36(4): 757-772.

Economic Restructuring, Urban Growth, and Short-term Trades: The Spatial Dynamics of the Hong Kong Housing Market, 1992-2008 Monkkonen, Paavo, Kelvin SK Wong, and Jaclene Begley. 2012. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 42(3): 396-406.

The Demand for Land Regularization: Theory and Evidence from Tijuana, Mexico Monkkonen, Paavo. 2012. Urban Studies, 49(2): 270-287.

The Housing Transition in Mexico: Expanding Access to Housing Finance Monkkonen, Paavo. 2011. Urban Affairs Review, 47(5): 672-695.