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Elizabeth Delmelle
Teaching and Research Interests
- Urban and Neighborhood Dynamics
- Urban Transportation
- Spatial Analysis and Modeling
- Geographic Information Science
- Urban Analytics
Education
- Ph.D. (2012) Geography & Urban Regional Analysis, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
- M.A. (2006) Geography, State University of New York at Buffalo
- B.S. (2004) Geographic Science, James Madison University
Profile
Please note – as of July 1, 2022, I have moved to the Department of City & Regional Planning at UPenn. I can be reached at delmelle@design.upenn.edu
I am an urban and transportation geographer and a Geographic Information Scientist. I am fascinated by cities and neighborhoods and in understanding their processes of change. I love searching for new and creative ways of visualizing and analyzing these dynamic processes – from the more complex geocomputational approaches to the simple word cloud made from real estate listings-I enjoy seeking out new data sources or methods and investigating their potentials and limitations in illuminating processes of change.
My research partner, Dr. Isabelle Nilsson and I have recently wrapped up an NSF-funded project on residential mobility and the probability of transit-induced displacement. Here is a book chapter I recently wrote summarizing much of what we’ve learned through this project. Our project website with all of the details can be found here. I summarized much of what we’ve learned in the second half of this TRB-sponsored presentation that you can watch here!
I am the former chair of the Transportation Geography Specialty group of the AAG and currently serve as Associate Editor (will transition to co-editor in chief January 2023) for the Journal of Transport Geography and am on the editorial boards of Geographical Analysis, Applied Geography, Transactions in GIS, and Informatics and Telematics.
Geographic Information tools and spatial analytical/statistical methods form the core of my research methodological approach. The courses I teach are along these lines including: Spatial Thinking, Fundamentals of Geographic Information Systems, Spatial Modeling for Social and Economic Applications, and Spatial Database Development. Here is a sneak peak at a balloon mapping exercise in the Spatial Thinking course: http://inside.uncc.edu/news-features/2017-08-02/thinking-spatially-%E2%80%93-balloon-exercise-helps-students-perceive-timespace
Coverage of Research
Some CityLab coverage of my articles:
- Mapping neighborhood change in Chicago and LA (Annals of AAG): The city of Chicago has put the results of that analysis in action! https://www.chicagocityscape.com/maps/investmentzones.php
- A New Typology of American Neighborhoods (Environment & Planning A, 2017).
- Urban neighborhoods, once distinct by race and class are blurring (Urban Science, 2019).
London School of Economics US Policy Blog summary of recent research
Run out of things to watch on Netflix? Here is a seminar video on some of our most recent research using text analysis of real estate listings to understand neighborhood dynamics!
Some press on my work with collaborators in Austria that looks at the relationship between social satisfaction, commuting, and the urban environment: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-neighborhood/201403/how-your-commute-can-damage-your-relationships
Does transit cause displacement? Its complicated.
Does new transit gentrify low-income communities?
NPR Interview on Light Rail, gentrification, displacement
NPR Interview on our work looking at how changes in accessibility impact labor market outcomes.
UCLA Housing Voice Podcast on Transit, Displacement, Evictions
If you are a hard-working and creative graduate student interested in any of these things, please email me, I’d love to discuss potential opportunities.
Besides working, I enjoy running, reading, coffee, buying fancy pens and notebooks, exploring the world, snuggling with my kids, and getting the elusive full night’s sleep (in no particular order).
