His research focuses on planning’s influence on the built form and design of North American cities and the politics associated with planning for neighborhood change. His research asks how communities understand and use regulatory approaches in guiding development. He principally uses archival and ethnographic methods to explore these questions. He has published on the history of zoning and land use politics in Los Angeles, the FHA’s impact on local zoning, redevelopment politics in conservative contexts, the uses and politics of planned unit development, the history of American urban form, and planning theory.