Associate Professor
Graduate Advisor for Community & Regional Planning
Jake Wegmann has taught and conducted research at UT Austin’s School of Architecture, in the Community and Regional Planning program, since 2014. His research primarily focuses on housing affordability and its intersections with land use regulation and real estate development.
He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to entering academia, he worked in for-profit and nonprofit affordable housing development in Denver and San Francisco.
Jake lives with his wife and daughter in Austin. In his spare time, he enjoys bike riding, hiking, and camping.
EDUCATION
- Ph.D., Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley
- MCP/MSRED, Department of Urban Studies and Planning and Center for Real Estate, MIT
- MS, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder
- BA, Computer Science, Dartmouth College
PUBLICATIONS + PROJECTS
PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES
2023
(24) Roberts, Mark G. and Jake Wegmann. 2023. “ESG Investing—Moderate-Income Rental Housing as a Viable Real Estate Asset Class.” Journal of Portfolio Management (forthcoming).
(23) Wegmann, Jake, Aabiya Noman Baqai, and Josh Conrad. 2023. “Here Come the Tall Skinny Houses: Assessing Single-Family to Townhouse Redevelopment in Houston, 2007-2020.” Cityscape 25(2).
2021
(22) Boeing, Geoff, Max Besbris, David Wachsmuth, and Jake Wegmann. 2021. "Tilted Platforms: Rental Housing Technology and the Rise of Urban Big Data Oligopolies." Urban Transformations. https://doi.org/10.1186/s42854-021-00024-2
(21) Pendall, Rolf, Lydia Lo, and Jake Wegmann. “Shifts Toward the Extremes: Zoning Change in Major U.S. Metropolitan Areas from 2003 to 2019.” Journal of the American Planning Association (JAPA). https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2021.1894970
(20) Conrad, Josh, Sarah Mawhorter, and Jake Wegmann. “Can We Use Administrative Data to Quantify Informal Housing Additions at the Parcel Level? An Analysis of Austin, USA.” International Journal of Housing Policy. https://doi.org/10.1080/19491247.2021.1890535
2020
(19) Mueller, Elizabeth, Heather Way, and Jake Wegmann. “Freefall: Why Our Housing Safety Net Is Failing the Lowest-Income Renters During COVID-19.” Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law 29(2), 257-270.
(18) Pfeiffer, Deirdre, Alex Schafran, and Jake Wegmann. “Opportunity or Vulnerability? Making Sense of the Sudden Rise in Single Family Rentals.” Housing Studies. DOI: 10.1080/02673037.2020.1739235.
(17) Geoff Boeing, Jake Wegmann, and Junfeng Jiao. “Rental Housing Spot Markets: How Online Information Exchanges Can Supplement Transacted-Rents Data.” Journal of Planning Education and Research (JPER). DOI: 10.1177/0739456X20904435.
(16) Wegmann, Jake. “Death to Single-Family Zoning … and New Life to the Missing Middle.” (critical commentary essay). Journal of the American Planning Association 86(1), 113-119.
(15) Wegmann, Jake. “Residences Without Residents: Assessing the Geography of Ghost Dwellings in Big U.S. Cities.” Journal of Urban Affairs 42(8), 1103-1124.
2019
(14) Wegmann, Jake. “Is There Room for Children in Booming Western Cities? Empirical Evidence from Austin, Denver, and Portland.” Cities. Published online ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.102403
(13) Reina, Vincent, Jake Wegmann, and Erick Guerra. “Are Location Affordability and Fair Housing on a Collision Course? Race, Transportation Costs, and the Siting of Subsidized Housing.” Cityscape 21(1), 125-142.
(12) Pfeiffer, Deirdre, Jake Wegmann, and Alex Schafran. “Exploring the Relationship Between Housing Downturns and Partisan Elections: Neighborhood-Level Evidence From Maricopa County, Arizona.” Urban Affairs Review 56(6), 1630-1658.
2018
(11) Pendall, Rolf, Jake Wegmann, Jonathan Martin, and Dehui Wei. “The Growth of Control? Changes in Local Land Use Regulation in Major US Metropolitan Areas from 1994 to 2003.” Housing Policy Debate 28(6),901-919.
2017
(10) Wegmann, Jake, and Junfeng Jiao. “Taming Airbnb: Toward Guiding Principles for Local Regulation of Urban Vacation Rentals Based on Empirical Results from Five US Cities.” Land Use Policy 69(2017), 494-501.
(9) Wegmann, Jake and Sarah Mawhorter. “Measuring Informal Housing Production in California Cities.” Journal of the American Planning Association (JAPA) 83(2), 119-130. Winner of JAPA’s Best Paper in 2017 award, and 2018 University of Texas at Austin Hamilton Co-Op Award for Best Peer-Reviewed Paper of the Year at the University.
(8) Wegmann, Jake and Jonathan Pacheco Bell. “The Invisibility of Code Enforcement in Planning Praxis: The Case of Informal Housing in Southern California.” Focus: The Journal of Planning Practice and Education (California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo) 13(1), 20-29.
(7) Durst, Noah J. and Wegmann, Jake. “Informal Housing in the United States.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 41(2), 282–297. Selected for inclusion in IJURR’s 40th Anniversary Virtual Issue.
(6) Wegmann, Jake, Alex Schafran, and Deirdre Pfeiffer. "Breaking the Double Impasse: Securing and Supporting Diverse Housing Tenures in the United States." Housing Policy Debate 27.2: 193-216.
2016
(5) Wegmann, Jake and Karen Christensen. “Subsidized Rental Housing in the United States: What We Know and What We Need to Learn in Three Themes.” Planning Forum (University of Texas at Austin) Vol. 17, 55-74.
2015
(4) Wegmann, Jake. “Research Notes: The Hidden Cityscapes of Informal Housing in Suburban Los Angeles and the Paradox of Horizontal Density.” Buildings and Landscapes 22(2): 89-110.
2014
(3) Wegmann, Jake. "Measuring What Matters: A Call for a Meaningful Metric of Affordable Rental Housing Production Cost-Efficiency." Housing Policy Debate 24(4): 692-716.
(2) Wegmann, Jake, and Karen Chapple. “Hidden Density in Single-Family Neighborhoods: Backyard Cottages as an Equitable Smart Growth Strategy.” Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability 7(3): 307-329.
2012
(1) Schafran, Alex, and Jake Wegmann. "Restructuring, Race, and Real Estate: Changing Home Values and the New California Metropolis, 1989-2010." Urban Geography 33(5): 630-654.
BOOK CHAPTERS
2019
Jake Wegmann. 2019. “Sharing and Housing: Is There An App For That?” In Markus Moos (Ed.), Housing: Local Dynamics in a Global Age. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, p. 199-210.
2018
Jiao, Junfeng and Jake Wegmann. 2018. “Urban Vacation Rentals and the Housing Market: Boon or Bust (or Both) in the Millennial City?” In Markus Moos, Tara Vinodrai and Deirdre Pfeiffer (Eds.), The Millennial City: Trends, Implications, and Prospects for Urban Planning and Policy, p. 167-180. New York: Routledge.
