Magda Maaoui

Magda Maaoui is a Postdoctoral Fellow working on rental markets and affordability and a Design Critic in Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In her previous role as planner and research associate at the Atelier Parisien d’Urbanisme, Paris’s planning agency, and as an external expert consultant for the OECD, Dr. Maaoui oversaw projects that focus on curbing environmental and public health inequality through urban development. She also evaluated strategies for the preservation and creation of affordable housing including adaptive reuse, infill densification, inclusionary zoning, fair-share mandates, and rent stabilization. In her work at the Center, she focuses on policy-relevant, actionable findings for legislators, planners, and advocacy organizations eager to rethink land use systems.

Magda holds a PhD in Urban Planning from Columbia University. She has contributed to Routledge’s Zoning: A Guide for 21st-Century Planning (2020) and her research has been featured in popular news sources and in campaigns for good governance and affordable housing provision reform in France and in the United States. She has written or co-written peer-reviewed articles for the Berkeley Planning Journal, Housing Studies, Urban Studies, and the Journal of Planning Education and Research.