Michael Lens

Michael Lens is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy, Chair of the Luskin Undergraduate Programs, and Associate Faculty Director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. Professor Lens’ research and teaching explore the potential of public policy to address housing market inequities that lead to negative outcomes for low-income families and communities of color. This research involves zoning and land use, segregation, housing subsidies, and eviction. Professor Lens regularly publishes this work in leading academic journals and his research has won awards from the Journal of the American Planning Association and Housing Policy Debate.

His book Where the Hood At: Fifty Years of Change in Black Neighborhoods, was published in November 2024 by the Russell Sage Foundation.

In ongoing research, Professor Lens is using microdata to study housing mobility, whether and how accessory dwelling units are affecting housing costs, and how planning reforms in California are achieving fair housing outcomes.  

Professor Lens’s research has received funding from the MacArthur Foundation, Arnold Ventures, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Hilton Foundation, and Wells Fargo, among other sources.

Professor Lens teaches courses on quantitative analysis, poverty and inequality, community development, housing policy, and research methods.