MARCA
Research
Current and Ongoing Projects:
State of Memphis Housing, led by Dr. Katherine Lambert-Pennington (SUAPP), collaborates with Innovate Memphis to examine local policy. These economic, social, and bureaucratic dynamics shape the housing ecosystem in Memphis. The team will share findings at the fall 2026 Housing Summit sponsored by the City of Memphis' Division of Housing and Community Development. Collaborating faculty include Drs. Courtnee Melton-Fant and Andrew Guthrie (City and Regional Planning), along with Urban Affairs graduate student researchers, Quinn Houlihan and Stephen Mensah.
Living the River, led by Dr. Arleen Hill (Earth Sciences), is a year-long curricular effort exploring
the legacies of the 1927 Mississippi River flood, how Memphis lives with the river
today, what we have learned from the past, and what risks we still face. Collaborating
faculty include Dr. Andrew Guthrie (City and Regional Planning), Dr. Donal Harris
(English), and Katherine Lambert-Pennington (Anthropology/SUAPP).
The Federalism Lab: The Politics of Local Government collects data on collaboration, cooperation, and,
at times, opposition among local, state, and national governments. State constitutions
designate the powers of local governments in the United States, even in more autonomous
"home rule" states. Our research in The Federalism Lab focuses on preemption mechanisms
that allow a state to preempt or overrule local policy action. Data collection includes
roll-call votes from the Tennessee General Assembly and agenda items from the Memphis
City Council and Shelby County. For more information, contact Dr. Brooke Shannon.
MAPP Memphis: Measuring Assets, People, and Places is a pilot project examining how the boundaries used to define neighborhoods shape inequality by comparing administrative borders with resident-defined geographies in Soulsville, a historically Black neighborhood in Memphis. Urban policies and planning frameworks often rely on arbitrary units such as zip codes and census tracts that misrepresent local needs and resilience, a form of spatial bias known as the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP). Using a mixed-methods design that combines Participatory GIS (PGIS) and Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), the project trains Soulsville youth as co-researchers to map neighborhood boundaries, document residents' oral histories, and integrate these data into the Memphis 3.0 comprehensive planning framework. This resident-authored spatial dataset will quantify how administrative misalignments distort measures of opportunity and belonging while revealing mechanisms of resilience and community identity that conventional data overlook. In doing so, the project reframes spatial definition itself as a mechanism of inequality and demonstrates a scalable, participatory model for more equitable and community-informed urban planning. For more information, contact Dr. Brenda Mathias.