From Data to Decision: Mapping Housing & Climate Equity
July 1 @ 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm
This session is part of our Zoned Out webinar series, exploring how the Virginia Zoning Atlas and related tools can drive more equitable and sustainable housing policy.
Good housing policy starts with good data — but knowing what to measure, and how to act on it, is harder than it looks. This webinar brings together national research tools and real on-the-ground examples to show how communities are using mapping and data visualization to connect the dots between housing, equity, and climate outcomes. Data can answer specific questions. Sometimes it opens up new ones. Both outcomes are valuable — and this session is designed to help you get more out of both. Join us for 75 minutes of practical insight, live demonstration, and honest conversation about what data can (and can’t) do for housing and climate policymakers.
Claudia Aiken is Director of New Research Partnerships at the New York University (NYU) Furman Center and Housing Solutions Lab, but is a Virginia native. The Housing Solutions Lab at the NYU Furman Center helps small and midsize cities plan, launch, and evaluate evidence-based local housing policies that advance racial equity, increase access to opportunity, and improve long-term health and wellbeing for residents.
She previously led the Housing Initiative at Penn, where her research focused on rental assistance program design and the racial and ethnic disparities that shape who can access housing programs. She has consulted on municipal housing planning processes in Philadelphia and Cleveland, and holds degrees from the University of Virginia and the University of Pennsylvania.
Alex Fella is the Principal of CityWork, a research consultancy based in Norfolk that translates spatial and social data into interactive maps, dashboards, and policy briefs. His portfolio spans housing affordability, climate adaptation, economic development, food access, and public health for governments, nonprofits, and private organizations across the Mid-Atlantic and Canada. He also consults with the United Nations as a Housing Policy Specialist, focusing on the financialization of rental housing and climate adaptation.
Fella is the author of the forthcoming book Liquid Cities (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026), which looks at renters trapped between rising seas and rising rents, examines how real estate finance shapes urban adaptation, and proposes policy frameworks designed to protect vulnerable renters.
An anthropologist and philosopher by training, and a former fellow at the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society, Fella also teaches courses in the humanities. This multidisciplinary background deeply informs his practice. He holds a master’s degree from Yale University.