Expert Profile
Virginia Parks
Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy
Virginia Parks, PhD, is a geographer and urban planner specializing in the study of urban inequality.
Areas of Expertise
- Clean Energy Transition
- Urban Politics and Policy
- Racial Inequality
- Employment
- Local Economic Development
- Labor
Biography
Virginia Parks, PhD, is a geographer and urban planner specializing in the study of urban inequality. Her research and teaching interests include labor and employment, racial and gender inequality, urban politics and policy, and local economic development. Professor Parks has published research on the racial wage gap, low-wage work, immigrant employment patterns, public sector jobs, workplace diversity, job training, commuting disparities, and the politics of urban development. Throughout this work Professor Parks is motivated by how urban space, politics, and regulatory environments influence inequality outcomes.
Her current research analyzes the economic effects of the clean energy transition on workers and regional economies.
Media
Media Appearances
Displaced fossil fuel workers struggling as CA shifts to clean energy, study shows
KABC, 5/15/2023
What Happens When a Refinery Closes
NBC Bay Area, 4/27/2023
UC Irvine Labor Center opens on campus
UCI News, 3/21/2023
Event Appearances
Challenges and Opportunities of University-Labor Research: The Case of the Martinez Refinery Closure Survey
UC Labor Centers’ Statewide Gathering with the California Labor Federation. (UC Labor Centers), 3/20/2024
Orange County Industry and Employment Trends
Orange County Labor Federation (Orange, CA), 10/27/2023
Orange County Worker and Employment Profile
Orange County Community Economic Resilience Fund (CERF) High Road Transition Collaborative (Zoom), 6/30/2023
Articles
Housing and Food Insecurity among Resort Food Service Workers in Orange County, CA: Results from a Worker Survey
UC Irvine Labor Center
Orange County Worker Profile
UCI Labor Center
Fossil fuel layoff: The economic and employment effects of a refinery closure on workers in the Bay Area
UC Berkeley Labor Center
‘They Made a Path for Us’: A Survey of Participants in the Los Angeles Utility Pre-Craft Training Program
UC Irvine Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy
Economic Impacts of the COVID-19 Crisis in Orange County, California: Neighborhood Gaps in Unemployment-Insurance Coverage
UC Irvine Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy
Rosa Parks Redux: Racial Mobility Projects on the Journey to Work
Geographies of Mobility
The Uneven Geography of Racial and Ethnic Wage Inequality: Specifying Local Labor Market Effects
Annals of the Association of American Geographers
What Do We Really Know About Racial Inequality? Labor Markets, Politics, and the Historical Basis of Black Economic Fortunes
Politics & Society
The Politics and Practice of Economic Justice: Community Benefits Agreements as Tactic of the New Accountable Development Movement
Economic Justice, Labor and Community Practice
Education
University of California, Los Angeles
PhD, Geography, 2002
University of California, Los Angeles
MA, Urban Planning, 1997
University of Colorado
BA, Humanities and History, 1993
Accomplishments
- Russell Sage Foundation Visiting Scholar
- Summer Institute in Economic Geography Fellow
- California Census Research Data Center Dissertation Fellowship
Affiliations
- Association of American Geographers
- Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
- American Planning Association
- Urban Affairs Association
- American Sociological Association
- Labor and Employment Relations Association