Revel Sims

Biography

Revel Sims joined the University of Wisconsin–Madison as an assistant professor in the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture (DPLA) and the Chican@ and Latin@ Studies Program (CLS) in September 2016. Prior to joining these units, he was an Honorary Fellow at the DPLA and Visiting Assistant Professor in CLS. Revel Sims obtained his PhD in 2014 from the Department of Urban Planning at University of California Los Angeles. His dissertation, “It was like dancing on a grave”: Eviction and Displacement in Los Angeles 1994 to 1999, is an analysis of displacement during the pivotal decade of the 1990s that employs a spatial analysis of over 70,000 eviction cases. The findings exposed four distinct concentrations of displacement in Los Angeles during the period and provide a basis for the argument that while everyday displacement can form a major part of urban experience bringing together systems of racialization, tenure, and finance, displacement remains generally under analyzed within urban theory, research, and policy. Selected Awards

Dr. Brenda Pfaehler Award of Excellence, Center for Educational Opportunity (CeO)

Chester Rapkin Award for best article in volume 35 of the Journal of Planning Education and Research (JPER)

Publications

2023. (with Carolina S. Sarmiento). “Squeezed in and pushed out: dual and contradictory displacements in Santa Ana, CA.” City: Analysis of urban change, theory, action 27(3-4) 294-320. 

2021. “Measuring the effect of gentrification on displacement: Multifamily housing and eviction in Wisconsin’s Madison urban region.” Housing Policy Debate, 31(3-5), 736-761..

2019 (with Alicia Iverson). “Multiple Eviction: An Investigation of Chain Displacement in Dane County, Wisconsin.” Urban Affairs Review 57(2): 527–551. [view publication]

2018 (with Sarmiento C. and A. Morales). “Little free libraries: An examination of micro-urbanist interventions.” Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and UrbanSustainability 11(2): 233–253. [view publication]

2015 “More than Gentrification: Geographies of Capitalist Displacement in Los Angeles 1994-1999.” Urban Geography. 37(1): 26-56. [view publication]

2015 “Sarmiento, C., Sims, J.R. 2015. Façades of Equitable Development: Santa Ana and the Affordable Housing Complex.”  Journal of Planning Education and Research. 35(3): 323-336. [view publication]

2013 (with Freisthler, B., N.J. Kepple, & S.E. Martin). “Evaluating Medical Marijuana Dispensary Policies: Spatial Methods for the Study of Environmentally-Based Interventions.” American Journal of Community Psychology. 51(1-2): 278-288. [view publication]

Projects

J. Revel Sims et al. 2016. Evicted in Dane County, Wisconsin: A Collaborative Examination of the Housing Landscape. Madison, WI [view report]

Sarmiento, C. & Sims, R. 2016. Lacy in Crisis and in Action: A report on housing and tenant conditions in the Lacy neighborhood in Santa Ana, California. Santa Ana, CA: People’s Data Project. [view report]

The Next Practice and MASdata 2014. Santa Ana Wellness District: A Study of Demand and supply for wellness goods and services in downtown Santa Ana, California [view report]

Nancy J Williams, Bridget Freisthler, and J. Revel Sims. 2011/2010. Crime and Medical Marijuana Dispensaries. California Center for Population Research On-Line Working Paper Series.

Gilda Haas, Jacqueline Leavitt, and J. Revel Sims (editors) 2007. Fighting for a Right to the City: Collaborative Research to Support Community Organizing in L.A.