Virginia Parks
Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy | UC Irvine
Irvine, CA, UNITED STATES
Virginia Parks, PhD, is a geographer and urban planner specializing in the study of urban inequality.
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Biography
Virginia Parks, PhD, is a geographer and urban planner specializing in the study of urban inequality. Her research and teaching interests include labor and employment, racial and gender inequality, urban politics and policy, and local economic development. Professor Parks has published research on the racial wage gap, low-wage work, immigrant employment patterns, public sector jobs, workplace diversity, job training, commuting disparities, and the politics of urban development. Throughout this work Professor Parks is motivated by how urban space, politics, and regulatory environments influence inequality outcomes.
Her current research analyzes the economic effects of the clean energy transition on workers and regional economies.
Areas of Expertise (6)
Clean Energy Transition
Urban Politics and Policy
Racial Inequality
Employment
Local Economic Development
Labor
Accomplishments (3)
Russell Sage Foundation Visiting Scholar (professional)
August 2008-June 2009
Summer Institute in Economic Geography Fellow (professional)
2004 University of Wisconsin, Madison
California Census Research Data Center Dissertation Fellowship (professional)
2001-02
Education (3)
University of California, Los Angeles: PhD, Geography 2002
University of California, Los Angeles: MA, Urban Planning 1997
University of Colorado: BA, Humanities and History 1993
Summa Cum Laude
Affiliations (6)
- Association of American Geographers
- Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
- American Planning Association
- Urban Affairs Association
- American Sociological Association
- Labor and Employment Relations Association
Links (5)
Media Appearances (3)
Displaced fossil fuel workers struggling as CA shifts to clean energy, study shows
KABC online
2023-05-15
"This was an opportunity, not one we would want but an opportunity to give us sight lines on the coming transition to clean energy," UC Irvine Urban Planning and Public Policy professor Virginia Parks -- who is the lead author of the study -- told ABC7 news of their research. "Learning what are fossil fuels workers are really going to face in the labor market once they no longer have jobs in industries where they've been employed?"
What Happens When a Refinery Closes
NBC Bay Area online
2023-04-27
A pair of researchers looked at what happened after the marathon refinery closed in 2020.345 people lost their jobs. The researchers found that while about 75% of the workers found new jobs. Raj Mathai speaks with UC Irvine professor Dr. Virginia Parks, who is one of the researchers on this project.
UC Irvine Labor Center opens on campus
UCI News online
2023-03-21
Through research, advocacy, policy innovation, education and outreach, the center will support unions and worker organizations in their endeavors to create a fair and racially just worker-centered economy. Virginia Parks, professor of urban planning and public policy; Walter Nicholls, professor and chair of urban planning and public policy; and Sameer Ashar, clinical professor of law and director of UCI’s Workers, Law and Organizing Clinic, are leading the effort, and Parks is serving as the center’s academic director.
Event Appearances (3)
Challenges and Opportunities of University-Labor Research: The Case of the Martinez Refinery Closure Survey
UC Labor Centers’ Statewide Gathering with the California Labor Federation. UC Labor Centers
2024-03-20
Orange County Industry and Employment Trends
Orange County Labor Federation Orange, CA
2023-10-27
Orange County Worker and Employment Profile
Orange County Community Economic Resilience Fund (CERF) High Road Transition Collaborative Zoom
2023-06-30
Articles (9)
Housing and Food Insecurity among Resort Food Service Workers in Orange County, CA: Results from a Worker Survey
UC Irvine Labor Center2023 In the wake of COVID-19, workers in Orange County’s resort sector struggle daily against the challenges of food and housing insecurity. We surveyed workers employed by a food services company operating in Anaheim’s Disneyland Resort Park in August 2023 about their basic needs.
Orange County Worker Profile
UCI Labor Center2023 The UCI Labor Center’s analysis of labor market trends is informed by a worker-centered approach. We focus on workers as the level of analysis. For example, we analyze workers’ wages as opposed to household income. We also focus on key worker characteristics, such as gender, race, and ethnicity.
Fossil fuel layoff: The economic and employment effects of a refinery closure on workers in the Bay Area
UC Berkeley Labor Center2023 On October 30, 2020, the Marathon oil refinery in Contra Costa County, California, was permanently shut down and 345 unionized workers laid off. We surveyed (n=140) and interviewed (n=21) these refinery workers to document their post-layoff employment experiences. The findings in this report focus on these workers’ post-layoff job search, employment status, wages, and financial security.
‘They Made a Path for Us’: A Survey of Participants in the Los Angeles Utility Pre-Craft Training Program
UC Irvine Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy2021 Unionized public sector employment has historically provided workers of color—African Americans especially—with good jobs and long-term economic security. Yet pathways into these jobs can be opaque to less-skilled workers and highly constrained for disadvantaged and nontraditional workers, such as women in blue-collar occupations.
Economic Impacts of the COVID-19 Crisis in Orange County, California: Neighborhood Gaps in Unemployment-Insurance Coverage
UC Irvine Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy2020 Economic relief efforts are underway in response to the COVID-19 unemployment crisis. Recent federal legislation expanded the unemployment insurance (UI) system, and California is racing to implement these new programs while introducing new initiatives.iii Yet many workers remain ineligible or are at-risk of not applying. This technical brief provides a picture of which communities in Orange County, California, are at greatest risk of being left out of economic recovery responses to the COVID-19 unemployment crisis.
Rosa Parks Redux: Racial Mobility Projects on the Journey to Work
Geographies of Mobility2017 The iconic image of Rosa Parks sitting at the front of a bus documents the most famous commute in history. Rosa Parks was traveling home from work when she refused to give her seat to a white passenger in 1955, an act of civil disobedience that set the Montgomery bus boycott in motion and propelled civil rights onto the national stage.
The Uneven Geography of Racial and Ethnic Wage Inequality: Specifying Local Labor Market Effects
Annals of the Association of American Geographers2011 This article extends research on intermetropolitan and regional wage inequality through an investigation of the uneven geography of racial and ethnic wage inequality across metropolitan labor markets. Prior geographic studies largely restricted analysis of the source of intermetropolitan wage disparities to differences in industrial structure.
What Do We Really Know About Racial Inequality? Labor Markets, Politics, and the Historical Basis of Black Economic Fortunes
Politics & Society2011 Racial earnings inequalities in the United States diminished significantly over the three decades following World War II, but since then have not changed very much. Meanwhile, black—white disparities in employment have become increasingly pronounced.
The Politics and Practice of Economic Justice: Community Benefits Agreements as Tactic of the New Accountable Development Movement
Economic Justice, Labor and Community Practice2010 One of the most significant challenges currently facing urban communities of color is increasing economic inequality. Unlike past economic devastation wrought primarily by de-industrialization, rising inequality within many urban economies has resulted from new structural conditions of growth rather than abandonment (Sassen, 1998).
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