Biography:

Carolina is a graduate in both World Arts and Cultures and Urban Planning from UCLA, where she obtained her BA and MA. She is a PhD candidate at UCI in Planning, Policy and Design. Her research explores the relationship between urban development and inequality in a changing global economy. She examines the everyday responses of working class communities ranging from community-based planning, transnational development, to the creation of new democratic processes and spaces. She is part of a joint research team studying transnational indigenous communities in Oaxaca, Mexico and Los Angeles that build economic projects across borders. Her dissertation investigates the intersection between urban development, governance, and the creation and destruction of cultural spaces in working class communities of Santa Ana, California. She compares this study with a predominantly, but also rapidly changing Black community in Oakland, California struggling to develop their own cultural spaces. Unlike previous research on creative cities, this work places working communities at the center of discussions around economic and cultural development