About

Nancy Kwak is an associate professor in the History Department and the Urban Studies and Planning Department at UC San Diego. She is an urban historian with a focus on city and regional planning history. She earned her BA in history at UC Berkeley, her MAT at Harvard GSE, and her PhD in history from Columbia University in 2006. Her work history includes her first tenure-track position as an assistant professor at Polytechnic University (now NYU Tandon School of Engineering). During her doctoral studies, she taught at LaGuardia Community College, Brooklyn College, Fordham University, Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, Barnard College, and Columbia University. Earlier in her career, she also taught English in Busan and high school history in San Francisco. She is a past president of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Geography
• Mechanical engineering
• Meteorology
• Thermodynamics
• Mathematics
• Physics
• Engineering
• Humanities
• Business
• Environmental science
• Economic growth
• Archaeology
• Regional science
• Economics
• Economy
• History
• Art

Selected publications

• The 1949 Housing Act as Cold War Diplomacy

  Journal of the American Planning Association · 2024-09-19

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• UHY volume 50 issue 2 Cover and Front matter

  Urban History · 2023

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Business

  An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

  DOI

• Urban development

  2022-05-05 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  The word “development” is ubiquitous in urban studies and planning. Consider the names of government offices like the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the US, for instance, developer-produced commercial developments, community development, or urban development as a global phenomenon.

  PublisherDOI

• UHY volume 49 issue 1 Cover and Front matter

  Urban History · 2022

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Environmental science

  An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

  DOI

• UHY volume 48 issue 3 Cover and Front matter

  Urban History · 2021

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Geography

  An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

  DOI

• Introduction: Transforming Cities: Urbanization and International Development in Africa and Latin America since 1945

  Comparativ · 2021 · 1 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Humanities
  • Political Science
  • Humanities

  This introduction makes a case for a more forceful dialogue between historians of development and global urban historians. Global processes of urbanization, it argues, have long been an im- portant concern for development actors, but historians have only recently begun to explore the meaning and role of urban spaces within international development. The article suggests that a look at the history of urban development policies provides a better understanding of space as an object and context of development. It also claims that a new research focus fosters new insight into the transnational agency of architects and city planners. Last, it sheds new light on the ways in which development became big business in the post-1945 world.

  PublisherDOI

• Urban informality in the Global North: a view from Los Angeles

  Esboços histórias em contextos globais · 2021 · 5 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Geography
  • Economy

  Urban informality is often discussed and debated by scholars of cities in the Global South, but the term is used with much less frequency in studies of US cities. Looking at the daily functions of American cities, however, it is clear informality plays just as central a role in the US as in other cities around theworld, whether in the housing sector, jobs, or land use. This article will discuss the longer historical arc leading to the present day with a focus on specific historical moments in Los Angeles history. I begin with the emergence of formalization and land titles in an era of colonization, continuing to a discussion of early-twentieth century land rights specifically in the communities of Chavez Ravine, and end with an exploration of urban informality in Skid Row.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Powerful states, weak states: understanding coercion and neglect in the governance of Marcos-era Manila

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2020-09-04

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Megacities are governed by states that exhibit contradictory tendencies: they are, on the one hand, enormously strong, with the power to dispossess and evict thousands of urban dwellers with one single policy or map. On the other hand, they are also surprisingly helpless and uninformed, possessing outdated, erroneous information about residents and unable to stem the return migration of families recently evicted. This chapter examines this phenomenon in the governance of Greater Manila during a period of seemingly inescapable state power – the era of Ferdinand Marcos’s dictatorship from 1972 to 1986.

  PublisherDOI

• Three. Homeownership in an Era of Decolonization

  2019-12-31

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Six. A Homeownership Consensus

  2019-12-31

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Louise Miskell

  18 shared

• Phil Withington

  University of Sheffield

  16 shared

• Pierre‐Yves Saunier

  Rockefeller Foundation

  12 shared

• Shane Ewen

  Leeds Beckett University

  10 shared

• Nora Lafi

  10 shared

• A. K. Sandoval‐Strausz

  Pennsylvania State University

  10 shared

• Joe Harley

  Anglia Ruskin University

  9 shared

• Erika Hanna

  University of Bristol

  9 shared

Education

• B.A.

  UC Berkeley

• Other

  Harvard GSE

• Ph.D.

  Columbia University

  2006

Awards & honors

• Past president of the Society for American City and Regional…