Dr. Lee is Senior Lecturer in Urban and Regional Studies at the Centre for Urban Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Birmingham. He was previously Research Associate at Heriot-Watt University, School of Planning and Housing (1992-1994) and Research Assistant at Bristol University (1989-90 and 1991-92). During this period he has focused on patterns of social exclusion related to the operation of the housing market and policies directing the strategic planning of housing investments at a variety of spatial scales. Dr. Lee’s spatial analysis of neighbourhood ‘risk’ of low demand housing informed the location and policy design of Housing Market Renewal Pathfinders (HMRP) (2003-2010) – a £1.5 billion government programme designed to reduce low demand housing and the underlying drivers of changing demand. He has published a number of policy reports and papers that influenced debates on the identification of deprived areas and the role of housing within these debates.

Dr. Lee leads or contributes to the following modules:

• Research Methods (Postgraduate)
• Urban Regeneration and Renewal (Postgraduate)
• Understanding Neighbourhood Poverty (Undergraduate)

Dr Lee supervises doctoral research students in the following areas:

• Neighbourhood Trajectories and social exclusion
• Housing markets and strategy
• Urban planning and regeneration
• Futures, foresight techniques and neighbourhoods
• Low carbon planning and regeneration strategies

Potential students interested in similar areas of research can contact Dr Lee directly.

Research groups 

• Centre for Urban and Regional Studies
• Resilience and Urban Living
• Society, Economy and Environment

Research Interests 

• Neighbourhood Trajectories and social exclusion
• Housing markets and strategy
• Spatial planning
• Urban regeneration
• Futures, foresight techniques and neighbourhoods
• Low carbon planning and regeneration strategies

2012-2013: Planning Responses to ‘Shock’ and ‘Slow-Burn’ Events: the Role of Redundancy in Regional Resilience (UK and Japan) (ESRC and JSPS)

2012: Open Source Food Distribution: Delivering Distributed Food Manufacture to Enhance Resilience (EPSRC)

2010-2011: Conceptualizing and measuring resilience: the critical role of redundancy (University of Birmingham)

2009: Assessing the potential for integrated strategic working in the region (Advantage West Midlands)

2006-2009: Evaluation of Transform South Yorkshire Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder (Transform South Yorkshire)

2008: Comparison of Housing Market Areas and Strategic Housing Market Assessments in the North East (North East Regional Assembly) with Tribal Consulting

2007: Intelligent Data Driven Simulation for Policy Decision Support in the Social Sciences (ESRC)

2007: Housing and Economic Change in the Leeds and Sheffield City Region (Yorkshire Forward)

2004: Measuring Neighbourhood Trajectories in Understanding Processes of Social Exclusion (EU)

2002-2004: Changing Demand and Urban Regeneration in the North West (North West Regional Assembly)

• Member of organising and development committee for West Midlands Futures (2010~)
• Member of Audit Commission’s Housing Markets best practice advisory panel (2007-08)
• Seconded head of research and strategic intelligence, Birmingham City Council, Housing Department (2003-2004)
• Member of Joseph Rowntree Foundation housing investment and neighbourhood change Steering Group  (2005-2007)
• Member of Numeric Date Sets in Teaching and Learning Task-Force (ESRC/JISC) (2000-2003)
• Member of deprivation and housing satisfaction JRF Steering Group  (1998-1999)
• Inaugural Chair Moseley Forum, Birmingham (1998-2000)

Selected publications

Data Driven Simulation to Support Model Building in the Social Sciences, (2011), Journal of Algorithms & Computational Technology, Volume 5, Number 4, pp.561-581, December 2011 (With Catriona Kennedy, Georgios Theodoropoulos, Volker Sorge, Edward Ferrari and Chris Skelcher)

Lee, P. and Ferrari, E. 2010. Building Sustainable Housing Markets. Coventry: Chartered Institute of Housing Practice Studies

Trickett, L. and Lee, P. 2010. Leadership of ‘subregional’ places in the context of growth, Policy Studies, Vol 31, No. 4, pp. 429-440.

Lee, P. 2010. Competitiveness and social exclusion: The importance of place and rescaling in housing and regeneration policies, pp.184-202 in Malpass, P and Rowlands, R (2010) Housing, Markets and Policy, London: Routledge.

Lee, P., Burfitt, A. and Tice, A. 2009. The Creative Economy and Social Sustainability: Planning for Opportunity and Growth. Built Environment, 35 (2), 267-280.

Chapain, C. and Lee, P. 2009. Can We Plan the Creative Knowledge City? Perspectives from Western and Eastern Europe (2009) Built Environment, Volume 35, number 2, 2009 pp.157-164 with Caroline Chapain.

Lee, P., Ferrari, E. 2006. A United Kingdom? Changing Spatial, Ethnic and Tenure Patterns in England. In: Beider, H., ed., Neighbourhood Renewal and Housing Markets: Community Engagement in the US and UK. Blackwell, pp 31-62

Lee, P., Murie, A. and Oosthuizen, R. 2006. Birmingham: Narratives of Neighbourhood Transition. In: Musterd, S., Murie, A. and Kesteloot, R., eds., Neighbourhoods of Poverty: Urban Social Exclusion and Integration in Comparison. London: Macmillan, 162-179

Lee, P. and Nevin, B. 2003. Changing Demand for Housing: Restructuring Markets and the Public Policy Framework, Housing Studies, Vol 18, No. 1, pp.65-86.