Biography:

Ocean Howell is an academic expert in the history of urban planning, design and architecture and the history of race. Ocean studies the processes through which buildings and cities both reflect and shape social experience. He can talk about gentrification, spatial politics of urban planning, urban history, and the history of race. He is the author of "Making the Mission: Planning and Ethnicity in San Francisco."

Recent Media:

• After tumultuous year, can Portland make a comeback? (AP News, June 17, 2021)
• Four small wheels to fight crime (Engineering and Technology News, Nov. 27, 2020)
• In times of crisis, hostile architecture poses a bigger threat than ever (Dwell, July 29, 2020)
• The unsung story of Eichler Homes and how they helped integrate American neighborhoods (Dwell, June 23, 2020)
• Hostile architecture: A city consumed (Honi Soit, October 2019)
• The public spaces that shaped skateboarding (Curbed, June 5, 2019)
• Skateboarders: The shock troops of gentrification (JSTOR, July 22, 2016)
• S.F. loves anti-homeless design; just look around (The San Francisco Chronicle, March 20, 2015)
• Defensive architecture is keeping some people out of public spaces ("The Current," Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, March 17, 2015)
• Homelessness and the fierce hostility of the urban landscape (Nonprofit Quarterly, Feb. 25, 2015)
• Anti-homeless spikes: ‘sleeping rough opened my eyes to the city’s barbed cruelty’ (The Guardian, Feb. 18, 2015)
• Anti-homeless spikes are just the latest in 'defensive urban architecture’ (The Guardian, June 12, 2014)
• Sea life skate stoppers (The New York Times, Dec. 3, 2011)