The Urban Politics and Governance research group at McGill University

UPGo, the Urban Politics and Governance research group at McGill, addresses pressing urban governance problems with rigorous and publicly-oriented research. Our research themes are 1) local and regional economic development; 2) urban sustainability; 3) housing policy. UPGo is led by Prof. David Wachsmuth of the School of Urban Planning.

UPGo Blog

News, research summaries, and more

Are Los Angeles' STR laws working? A new UPGo report

An in-depth analysis of LA’s STR market and regulations

Wachsmuth awarded CMHC President's Medal for Outstanding Housing Research

A grant in recognition of our contributions to housing research in Canada
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David Wachsmuth

Canada Research Chair in Urban Governance

McGill University

Lab director

David Wachsmuth is the Canada Research Chair in Urban Governance at McGill University, where he is also an Associate Professor in the School of Urban Planning and an Associate Member in the Department of Geography. He directs UPGo, the Urban Politics and Governance research group at McGill, where he leads a team of researchers investigating pressing urban governance problems related to economic development, environmental sustainability, and housing markets. He is the co-lead of the Adapting Urban Environments for the Future theme of the McGill Sustainability Systems Initiative , where he is part of a broad interdisciplinary team developing new ways of conceptualizing, measuring, and improving urban sustainability.

A major focus of his work has been explaining a transition in policy and planning from identifying the city as a global sustainability problem to identifying the city as a solution to global sustainability problems. He is one of the world’s leading experts on the impacts of short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb on cities around the world, and consults widely with municipalities and community organizations on designing appropriate regulations. Dr. Wachsmuth has published widely in top journals in urban studies, planning and geography, and his work has been covered extensively in the national and international media, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, and the Washington Post.

Interests

  • Local sustainability planning
  • Regional economic development
  • Housing policy
  • The platform economy

Education

  • PhD in Sociology, 2014

    New York University

  • MSc in Urban Planning, 2008

    University of Toronto

  • BA (honours) in International Development Studies and Classics, 2004

    McGill University

Projects

A spatial analysis of COVID-19 risk and recovery in Canadian cities

An investigation into the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Canadian urban neighbourhoods

Adapting urban environments for the future

A theme of the McGill Sustainability Systems Initiative

Can cities save the planet?

A collaborative project with UC Santa Cruz on global urban sustainability thought and practice

Cities, short-term rentals, and the sharing economy

A SSHRC-funded investigation into the impacts of short-term rentals on cities

Libraries as urban infrastructure

An investigation into the social context and social benefits of urban libraries in Canada

People

Principal Investigator

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David Wachsmuth

Canada Research Chair in Urban Governance

Local sustainability planning, Regional economic development, Housing policy, The platform economy

Researchers

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Charlotte Belot

Post-graduate research assistant

Participatory urban design and planning, Design and data visualization, Housing justice

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Robin Basalaev-Binder

Predoctoral research assistant

Social and racial justice in planning, Housing and immigration, Short-term rentals, Urban sustainability

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Danielle Kerrigan

PhD research assistant

Social relations in the housing sector, Short-term rentals and the platform economy

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Cloé St-Hilaire

Master’s research assistant

Housing justice, Financialization of housing, Urban governance

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Maxime Bélanger De Blois

Master’s research assistant

Political economy, Data analysis, Sustainable development

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Mikael Brunila

PhD research assistant

Spatial data science, Bayesian inference, Natural language processing

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Samuel Kohn

Master’s research assistant

Smart cities, Place-making, Mobility

Alumni

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Jenni Chung

Master’s research assistant

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Akili Atherley

Former Master’s research assistant

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Amy Bolt

Former Master’s research assistant

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Danielle Girard

Former Master’s research assistant

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Lou Seltz

Former Master’s research assistant

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Nat Pace

Former Master’s research assistant

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Jennifer Combs

Former Master’s research assistant

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Andrea Shillolo

Former Master’s research assistant

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David Chaney

Former Master’s research assistant

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Bowen Zhang

Former Undergraduate research assistant

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Cayce McClenen

Former Undergraduate research assistant

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Ivana Nedyalkova

Master’s research assistant

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Jamie Rathwell

Former Master’s research assistant

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Joanna Xiao

Former Master’s research assistant

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Linnea Soli

Former Undergraduate research assistant

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Xuanxiao Wang

Former Master’s research assistant

Recent & Upcoming Talks

Short-term rentals in Halifax: Politics and policy

David Wachsmuth gives a public lecture at the Halifax Central Library on short-term rentals in Halifax, their impact on local housing …

The politics and policy of short-term rentals

David Wachsmuth gives a public lecture at UPEI on the relationship between short-term rentals and local housing markets.

Global problems, city solutions: A mixed methods analysis of local climate adaptation plans

Hillary Angelo and David Wachsmuth present preliminary findings from their research on local climate planning.

The regional geography of short-term rentals

David Wachsmuth and Danielle Girard present their research on a regional studies approach to short-term rentals.

A vision for living in a sustainable future

David Wachsmuth discusses the challenges and possibilities of urban life in a sustainable future.

Recent Publications

Open data science at UPGo

All of the code for our quantitative analysis projects is freely available for replication and repurposing on our team Github page . We often work with proprietary data which we are unable to share, but where we are using public data we share that as well.

We are also working to develop strr, an R package for cleaning, analyzing and visualizing short-term rental data, and matchr, an R package for fast and reliable matching of large sets of images. We expect to release a stable versions of both of these to CRAN in 2022, but the development versions of strr and matchr are now available for testing and feedback.

UPGo on Github

Contact