Planning & Policy

Rolf Pendall

Rolf Pendall, Ph.D., AICP, is Professor and chair of the Department of Community & Regional Planning at the University of New Mexico. His mission is to learn and show how planners can contribute to greater spatial justice. Over his 35-plus years as a practitioner, scholar, and teacher, he has researched and taught about the connections between core planning domains—especially land use and housing policy—with harmful outcomes like urban sprawl and spatial injustice. Before joining the faculty at UNM, Pendall was Professor (2018-25) and Department Head (2018-23) of the Department of Urban & Regional Planning at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; he previously directed the Urban Institute’s Center for Metropolitan Housing & Communities (2010-18) and held positions on the planning faculties at Cornell University (1998-2010) and the University of Rhode Island (1995-97). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and master’s degrees in planning and Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

Renia Ehrenfeucht

Renia Ehrenfeucht is a Professor of the Community + Regional Planning Department and the Associate Dean for Research at the University of New Mexico School of Architecture + Planning. She also currently serves as the Central Region Representative of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) Governing Board.

Dr. Ehrenfeucht is inspired by all transformational social action to create socially just and equitable institutions, environmentally sustainable societies, and vibrant economies that sustain cultural differences as well as traditional and new ways of life. Her research and teaching is motivated by the belief that committed social action can dismantle colonialism and racism and create ways of living that respect diverse people and all species.

Her research explores how people reshape built environments. One focus is public spaces and the politics of everyday life, examining how ordinary spaces and local institutions influence people’s opportunities in diverse environments. She has written about food trucks, street work and Airbnb as moments to explore urban transformation in work, daily life and the right to the street. She also studies shrinking cities and how people, places and institutions respond to population loss. In this area, she has written about disaster recovery in New Orleans as a shrinking city and the reasons that people choose to live in shrinking cities which often have limited amenities and work opportunities.

Her books include Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation in Public Space (with Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris) and Urban Revitalization: Remaking Cities in a Changing World (with Carl Grodach). She also has written numerous journal articles which are listed under Scholarship + Publications.