Metropolitan Policy Center, American University

04/23/2026

MPC Newsletter | Another Great Year at MPC - https://mailchi.mp/ddfd2cdae874/mpc-newsletter-oct-2-13892430

04/14/2026

MPC Director Derek Hyra tells Washington Post how the DC mayoral candidates’ affordable-housing policies face the reality of tighter budgets. “When you speak about them now,” he said, “you’ve got to think about, where is the money going to come from?” Read more here:

Plans by Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan R. McDuffie to increase the housing supply and lower costs for renters are different in scope, but they face the same hurdles.

03/20/2026

Join us next week! MPC’s first Urban Speaker Series event of the semester will feature Dr. Willow Lung-Amam, an Associate Professor in the Urban Studies and Planning Program at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she also serves as Director of Community Development at the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education and Director of the Small Business Anti-Displacement Network. Her scholarship focuses on how urban and suburban policies and plans contribute to and can address social inequality, particularly in neighborhoods undergoing rapid racial and economic change. In this talk, she will discuss her latest book, The Right to Suburbia: Combating Gentrification on the Urban Edge (University of California Press, 2024), which investigates how marginalized communities in the suburbs of Washington, DC—one of the most intensely gentrifying metropolitan regions in the United States—have battled the uneven costs and benefits of redevelopment.

Register at https://american-spa.swoogo.com/right-to-suburbia

03/09/2026

MPC Event | The Right to Suburbia: Combatting Gentrification on the Urban Edge - https://mailchi.mp/8c9f066fb8c6/mpc-newsletter-oct-2-13891637

02/03/2026

MPC Newsletter | MPC in 2026 - https://mailchi.mp/d4f38e133ce7/mpc-newsletter-oct-2-13890982

02/02/2026

MPC’s first Urban Speaker Series event of the semester will feature Dr. Willow Lung-Amam, an Associate Professor in the Urban Studies and Planning Program at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she also serves as Director of Community Development at the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education and Director of the Small Business Anti-Displacement Network. Her scholarship focuses on how urban and suburban policies and plans contribute to and can address social inequality, particularly in neighborhoods undergoing rapid racial and economic change. In this talk, she will discuss her latest book, The Right to Suburbia: Combating Gentrification on the Urban Edge (University of California Press, 2024), which investigates how marginalized communities in the suburbs of Washington, DC—one of the most intensely gentrifying metropolitan regions in the United States—have battled the uneven costs and benefits of redevelopment.

Register at https://american-spa.swoogo.com/right-to-suburbia

02/02/2026

MPC's first Urban Speaker Series event of the semester will feature Dr. Willow Lung-Amam, an Associate Professor in the Urban Studies and Planning Program at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she also serves as Director of Community Development at the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education and Director of the Small Business Anti-Displacement Network. Her scholarship focuses on how urban and suburban policies and plans contribute to and can address social inequality, particularly in neighborhoods undergoing rapid racial and economic change. In this talk, she will discuss her latest book, The Right to Suburbia: Combating Gentrification on the Urban Edge (University of California Press, 2024), which investigates how marginalized communities in the suburbs of Washington, DC—one of the most intensely gentrifying metropolitan regions in the United States—have battled the uneven costs and benefits of redevelopment.

Register at https://american-spa.swoogo.com/right-to-suburbia

12/02/2025

MPC Newsletter | Fall Semester at MPC - https://mailchi.mp/6c79152e8130/mpc-newsletter-oct-2-13889525

11/03/2025

Join the AU Library and MPC faculty fellow Benjamin Stokes TODAY (11/3) at 3:30 PM for "Locally Made Civic Games: History & Engagement Beyond Our Walls," part of the DRI Lab Speaker Series!
Professor Stokes is a leading scholar at the intersection of multimedia, games, and community engagement. Stokes is also the director of The Playful City Lab, a research lab that focuses on how games and playful activities can be used to build stronger communities, increase equity, and enhance civic engagement.
Register now at https://american.campuslabs.com/engage/event/11821562

10/31/2025

Join Dr. Rosemary Ndubuizu as she discusses her new book, The Undesirable Many, at Politics and Prose on Wednesday, Nov 5 at 7 pm.

About The Undesirable Many:
Amid a national housing affordability crisis with political and social implications, Washington, DC, is notorious for its rapidly rising income inequality, high rates of displacement, and some of the most expensive rents in the country. Housing policy expert Dr. Ndubuizu uncovers more than 100 years of affordable housing politics in the nation’s capital to illustrate local and national trends in how various social, economic, and political forces have worked together to ensure the persistent vulnerability of low-wage Black families to housing insecurity and displacement.