Dr. Leah Brooks, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Public Affairs, centers her research on the formation of urban spaces, the continuation of urban development, the health of urban communities, and how governmental change affects urban areas. Areas of Dr. Brooks' expertise include, but are not limited to public and urban economics and political economy. A community engaged scholar recently interviewed Dr. Brooks to learn more about her work.
Currently, Dr. Brooks is working on a project in DC that focuses on the “long term effects of properties destroyed in the 1968 riots.”
“The 1968 riots partially destroyed over one thousand properties.”
Dr. Brooks is researching “how destruction impacts urban areas in the long run.” Dr. Brooks notes that "destruction destroys value and harms people. It does, however, give a blank slate for rebuilding, with opportunities for change that didn't exist before. The properties that were destroyed took an average of 40 years to recover." Dr. Brooks’ research centers on looking at factors that “caused the delay of properties regaining value.”
Another recent project of Dr. Brooks looked at the “increasing costs to build the interstate highway system.” When the highway system was being “built between 1950 and 1970.” At the end of the project, “states paid three times as much as they did when the project started.” An “increase in income and an increase in governmental demand accounts for the bulk of increase in expenditure.” However, cost increases also resulted from “the increase in individual wealth from the late 1960’s to the early 1970’s” and from “the rise in citizen voice.”
“Changes in legislation allowed people to voice their preferences to the government.”
Dr. Brooks’ favorite project was “researching street cars in Los Angeles from 1890-1919.” From a “decrease in ridership between 1910-1919 and an increase in land use in the early 2000s,” Dr. Brooks studied “notable patterns which indicated that land was more densely built where streetcars once operated.” Amongst the findings of this study, Dr. Brooks found that “this density, this concentration of building, was particularly strong in the 1930s.” This observation led to two main points for further speculation; first, looking at some of the factors as to why “businesses want to build business around other businesses” and, second, “zoning.”
Recently, Dr. Brooks and other scholars published SPENDING WITHIN LIMITS: EVIDENCE FROM MUNICIPAL FISCAL RESTRAINTS. In the paper, scholars “ask when representation falls short in limiting government and whether constitutional rules that act to constrain representative government are effective” (315). More "specifically," Dr. Brooks and scholars “study rules at the municipal level that constrain a city’s ability to tax or spend” (316). To read the full paper, please click here. To learn more about Dr. Brooks' work, please click here to view her website.
