Rachel Weber

Rachel Weber was visting researcher at CRIT during the course 2016-2017. She is a Professor in the Urban Planning and Policy Department and a Faculty Fellow at the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she teaches courses and conducts research in the fields of economic development, urban policy, and public finance. She is the author of Swords into Dow Shares: Governing the Decline of the Military Industrial Complex and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Urban Planning, a compilation of 40 essays by leading urban scholars. Her latest book, From Boom to Bubble: How Finance Built the New Chicago, was recently published by the University of Chicago Press. Recent articles on infrastructure privatization and real estate cycles have appeared in the Journal of Cultural Economy, Urban Studies, and the Journal of Planning Education and Research.At the University of Barcelona sheresearched how “progressive” mayoral administrations elected after the crisis balance their simultaneous antipathy toward and dependence on the financial sector.She co-organized the seminar Building inclusive cities: Barcelona-Chicago held on Spring 2017.

In addition to her academic responsibilities, she has served as an advisor to planning agencies, political candidates, and community organizations on issues related to financial incentives, property taxes, and neighborhood revitalization. She was appointed to then-presidential candidate Barack Obama´s Urban Policy Committee in 2008 and by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to the Tax Increment Financing Reform Task Force in 2011 to provide recommendations to his new administration for reforming this financing tool.