https://cla.auburn.edu/polisci/directory/professorial-faculty/megan-e-heim-lafrombois/

Megan E. Heim LaFrombois

Associate Professor of Community Planning, Auburn University
Chapter Member: Alabama SSN
Areas of Expertise:

About Megan

Dr. Heim LaFrombois’ research focuses on community development, urban inequalities, participatory forms of community planning, public policy, and feminist approaches to urban studies and research. Central to her work is a focus on community engagement as a vehicle for addressing urban inequalities with the goal of informing planning practice and policy and improving cities. Overarching themes include an examination of how urban space is used and by whom, and how urban space is regulated, paying special attention to the roles of race, class, gender, and sexuality; and an examination of how cities’ use and present data to set planning agendas.

Publications

"How U.S. Shrinking Cities Plan for Change: Comparing Population Projections and Planning Strategies in Depopulating U.S. Cities" (with Yunmi Park and Daniel Yurcaba). Journal of Planning Education and Research (2019): 1-13.

Examines the mismatch between the reality of a city’s population loss and the planning strategies they have adopted. A majority of cities acknowledge depopulation; however, they rely on optimistic population projections for the future, while using a mix of planning strategies, ranging from smart decline to pro-growth, regardless of a city’s acknowledgment/acceptance of population loss.

"(Re)Producing and challenging gender in and through urban space: women bicyclists’ experiences in Chicago" Journal Gender, Place & Culture:A Journal of Feminist Geography 26, no. 5 (2019): 659-679.

Explores how women bicyclists must demand and negotiate public space; how their movement and activities are constrained in public space; how gender roles and social reproduction issues intersect with bicycling; and how social, quasi-advocacy group bicycle rides are used as a strategy, with mixed results, to address barriers to women bicyclists’ mobility.