About Marc Doussard
Biography
Marc Doussard is Professor of Urban and Regional Development. He focuses on equitable economic development at the level of communities, cities, and regions. Professor Doussard’s research examines the economic value of social practices, policy development, and emergent issues typically considered to lie outside economic development. His early work demonstrated the value to places and communities of improving pay, working conditions, and job security for low-wage workers. He has since explored the economic development value of marijuana legalization, the maker movement, community organizing, municipal public policy, and investments in local manufacturing capacity.
Professor Doussard holds a Bachelor’s degree from Columbia College, but his real education came at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has been active in economic development as a scholar, program staffer, public intellectual, and organizer since the 1990s.
Education
- PhD, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2008
- MUPP, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2002
- BA, Columbia College, 1997
Research and publications
Ongoing and upcoming research
Ongoing and Upcoming Research
Alternative Policy Mobilities:
How do alternative economic ideas become politically possible? Supported by a Fulbright Scholar award for research in France, this project examines the role of local and regional policy experiments in building political and popular support for universal basic income, worker cooperatives and participatory budgeting.
Urban Policy Entrepreneurship:
In the past decade, U.S. cities have become sites of policy experiments and dramatic change – an outcome that contradicts decades of warnings that cities had no capacity to act on the economy. Focusing on public finance, basic income experiments and alternative economic development models, this research examines the changing role of U.S. cities in shaping economy and policy.
Selected publications
Books
Justice at Work: The Rise of Economic and Racial Justice Coalitions in Cities (University of Minnesota Press, 2022)
Why are progressive coalitions in cities winning substantial policy victories after failing to win modest ones? Co-authored with Greg Schrock, Justice at Work documents the growth of economic and racial justice coalitions and the role of policy entrepreneurship networks in the legislative changes sweeping U.S. cities. The book focuses in particular on the ways that racial justice messages build organizing coalitions and make public finance subject to citizen action.
Degraded Work: The Struggle at the Bottom of the Labor Market (University of Minnesota Press, 2013) - Unanimous Winner of the 2015 Davidoff Book Award
The policies examined in Justice at Work take advantage of the transformation of urban economies to a base in immobile service industries. Degraded Work made the practical and conceptual case for focusing policy on low-wage service industries by documenting the strategic flexibility of low-wage employers in response to changes in society, law and economy.
Articles
Doussard, Marc and Greg Schrock. 2022. “Urban policy entrepreneurship: activist networks, minimum wage campaigns and municipal action against inequality.” Urban Affairs Review: 10780874221101530
Doussard, Marc and Ozge Yenigun. 2022. “From capital to capabilities: human development theory and new directions in economic development.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 0739456X221091434
Doussard, Marc and Brad Fulton. 2020. “Organizing together: Benefits and drawbacks of community-labor coalitions for community organizations.” Social Service Review 94 (1), 36-74
Doussard, Marc, Greg Schrock, Laura Wolf-Powers, Max Eisenburger and Stephen Marotta. 2018. “Manufacturing without the firm: Challenges for the maker movement in three US cities.” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 50 (3), 651-670
Doussard, Marc and Brad Fulton. 2020. “Organizing Together: Benefits and Drawbacks of Community-Labor Coalitions for Community Organizations.” Social Service Review 94 (1): 1-39.
Doussard, Marc. 2019. "The Other Green Jobs: Legal Marijuana and the Promise of Consumption-Driven Economic Development.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 39 (1): 79-92.
Clark, Jennifer and Marc Doussard. 2019. “Devolution, Disinvestment and Uneven Development: U.S. Industrial Policy and the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation.” Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 12 (2): 251-270.
Eisenburger, Max, Marc Doussard, Laura Wolf-Powers, Greg Schrock and Stephen Marotta. 2019. “Industrial Inheritances: Makers, Relatedness and Materiality in Chicago and New York.” Regional Studies, DOI: 10.1080/00343404.2019.1588460.
Teaching and advising
Classes taught
- UP 330: The Modern American City
- UP 505: Urban and Regional Analysis
- UP 545: Economic Development Policy and Practice
- UP 589: Research Design and Methods
- UP 594-MD: Policy Mobilities
Students advised
PhD:
- Max Eisenburger (ABD)
- Steve Sherman (PhD 2019)
- Ozge Yenigun (ABD)
Master of Urban Planning:
- Chris Ackerman-Avila
- Anna An
- Nick Bartholomew
- Ashma Basnyat
- Carol Brobeck
- Alejandro Campos
- Kelly Chen
- Adrienne Cooke
- Marcus da Costa
- Brianna Gipson
- Ming Hang
- Cristen Hardin
- Taryn Harm
- Scott Humphrey
- John Kwon
- Tejashree Kulkarni
- Jacob Malmsten
- Mitchelle Margolis
- David Mischiu
- Joe Monahan
- Shriya Rangarajan
- Swati Rastogi
- Claudlène Saint Vil
- Angela Urban
- Brian Waters
- Chieh Yang
- Alli Young
- Yuan Zhang
- Lyn Zhong