The University of Sheffield
Town and Regional Planning

Dr Lee Crookes

Teaching Associate

lcRoom number: F15
Telephone (internal): 26910
Telephone (UK): 0114 222 6910
Telephone (International): +44 114 222 6910
Email: l.crookes@sheffield.ac.uk

Academic profile

I was awarded a BA(Econ) in Government and Social Administration from the University of Manchester in 1994. I then spent three years with Bradford Metropolitan District Council as a graduate trainee accountant (1994-97) before moving to the South Yorkshire Joint Secretariat where I spent four years working as a Policy Officer. I subsequently moved to Canada and returned to undergraduate study, gaining a BA in Geography from Concordia University, Montreal in 2004.  I then moved on to postgraduate work in the Department of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Sheffield, completing a MA in Planning Research (2005) and a PhD (awarded 2011).

Whilst writing up my PhD, I was appointed as a Research Associate in the Department of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2009-10. This was followed by a research post in the Department of Geography at Durham University in 2010-11.  I was appointed as a Teaching Associate in Town and Regional Planning at the University of Sheffield in September 2011.

Research interests

I grew up in Sheffield and my early education took place against the background of the 1984-5 Miners’ strike, the decline of the steel industry and the rise of municipal socialism. From this formative experience, I developed a commitment to social justice and an enduring interest in the challenges faced by working class people and communities.  Positioning myself as a critical geographer/planner, I am interested in using qualitative methods to explore contemporary issues related to housing, class, gentrification, urban regeneration and associated conflicts over the meaning and use of space.  My PhD research examined the development of the Housing Market Renewal (HMR) programme and its implementation and impact in three urban areas in the north of England. Adopting an ethnographic approach, my research examined people’s relationship with place and home in so-called ‘low demand’ areas and investigated resistance to HMR. I also investigated the impacts of displacement and housing demolition on residents whose homes were subject to compulsory purchase.

Current research

Within the context of a broad ambition to develop an understanding of planning ‘from below’, that is, from the perspective of those who bear the individual and social costs of urban development, I am keen to extend and develop my doctoral research by shifting the focus of gentrification research from displacement to matters of emplacement whilst further examining the politics and geography of ‘home’, attachment to place and the personal and social costs of displacement. Current and planned developments of my research agenda include work in the following areas:

Teaching

I enjoy teaching planning because it provides ample scope and flexibility to approach complex economic, social and environmental challenges – so-called ‘wicked’ problems - through a range of disciplinary lenses including human geography, sociology, architecture, urban design, environmental psychology, politics, law and ethics. In my teaching I resist excessive abstraction, preferring to encourage students to apply theory to real-world issues and Sheffield’s emerging post-industrial economy and its changing culture and landscape presents students with several interesting and relevant case-studies. Drawing upon my local knowledge and contacts, I am committed to providing students with opportunities to develop their skills and knowledge by spending time outside the classroom and engaging with local communities. Informed by my research activity and the aforesaid commitment to social justice, much of my teaching is also concerned with raising students’ awareness of how ordinary people experience the planning system and I employ a range of techniques and teaching materials to achieve this.

I am involved in the teaching of the following modules:

TRP132 Planning Project
TRP215 European Urban Field Class
TRP450 Critical Perspectives on Planning
TRP6401 Spatial Planning Systems
TRP6403 Values in Planning

Selected publications

Coaffee, J., Crookes, L. and B. Evans (2012) Obesity/Fatness and the city: critical urban geographies. Geography Compass 6(2): 100-110
Crookes, L. (2011) The making of space and the losing of place: a critical geography of gentrification-by-bulldozer in the north of England. Unpublished PhD thesis
Crookes, L. (2010) The Long and Winding Road: Routes to Settled Accommodation for Offenders in North West England. Manchester: MMU
Allen, C. and Crookes, L. (2009) “Fables of the reconstruction: a critical phenomenology of ‘place shaping’ in the new urban landscape”, Town Planning Review 80(4-5), pp455-480

Other information

I am currently the Year 1 tutor for undergraduate students in the Department. Outside work, I am involved in supporting the Homes Under Threat (HUT) network.