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Who We Are Capabilities Partnerships Resources News

Impact Award

Grand Challenges: Urban Equity Collaborative

Team Website
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Grant Type: Impact Award
Topics: Future Cities and Social Justice
Colleges Represented: ARCH, ARHU, SPHL

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News

Events

April 16, 2026
Urban Equity Collaborative Celebration, 4:00-5:30 pm
The event will take place in the Great Space in The School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, 3835 Campus Drive, College Park, MD 20742
For more information, visit: https://urbanequitycollab.org/
 

Summary

Cities have never been more important. Currently, over 80% of people in the U.S. live and work in cities. By 2050, almost 90% of the U.S. population, and close to 70% of the world’s population will reside in cities. The Urban Equity Collaborative seeks to strengthen community-based institutions and the work of community activists around issues of urban inequality. It aims to incubate and disseminate durable research and policy strategies that promote economic, racial, and gender justice and shifts power towards communities on the frontlines of struggle.

To accelerate creative solutions to the trenchant problems facing urban communities, the Urban Equity Collaborative employs an intersectional, multidisciplinary, and collaborative approach to action research and collective inquiry that upholds equitable community partnerships. A unique feature of this initiative is its community fellows program where community leaders, including community-based organizational representatives, organizers, and activists, are invited to become researchers-in-residence.

The collaborative’s work will focus on issues of dispossession and displacement, and specifically issues of affordable housing access, immigrant rights, and small business displacement. Through capacity and knowledge exchange with communities, the Urban Equity Collaborative will leverage the collective expertise of university researchers in the service of community-led work.

Willow lungamam headshot PI: Willow Lung-Amam

Associate Professor, Urban Studies and Planning

ARCH
Nancy raquel mirabal headshot Co-PI: Nancy Raquel Mirabal

Associate Professor, American Studies

ARHU
Devon Payne-Sturges headshot Co-PI: Devon Payne-Sturges

Associate Professor, Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health

SPHL

Partnerships:

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