Profile:
Lisa J. Servon is Professor and former dean at Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy. Professor Servon holds a B.A in Political Science from Bryn Mawr College, an M.A in History of Art from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD in Urban Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. She teaches in the Urban Policy Program at Milano and conducts research in the areas of urban poverty, community development, economic development, and issues of gender and race. Specific areas of expertise include the financial lives of low-income communities, microenterprise development, and capacity-building for community-based organizations. Current research focuses on the alternative financial services industry. Her work has been funded by the Open Society Institute, the Aspen Institute, the Ford Foundation, the Fannie Mae Foundation and others. She spent 2004-2005 as Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC. Servon is the author or editor of numerous journal articles and four books: Bridging the Digital Divide: Technology, Community, and Public Policy (Blackwell 2002), and Bootstrap Capital: Microenterprises and the American Poor (Brookings 1999), Gender and Planning: A Reader (With Susan Fainstein, Rutgers University Press 2005), and Otra Vida es Posible: Practicas Economicas Alternativas Durante la Crisis (With Manuel Castells, Joana Conill, Amalia Cardenas and Sviatlana Hlebik. UOC Press 2012). She lives in Brooklyn.
Recent Publications:
Are Banks Too Expensive to Use?
The New York Times, October 2014
The Post Office as Payday Lender? Return to Sender
The Wall Street Journal, February 2014
What Good Are Payday Loans?
The New Yorker, February 2014
The High Cost, For the Poor, of Using a Bank
The New Yorker, October 2013
The Real Reason the Poor Go Without Bank Accounts
The Atlantic Cities, September 2013
Ritecheck 12
Public Books, July 2013
Sensory global towns: an experiential approach to the growth of the Slow City movement
Environment and Planning, 2013
Beyond the Crisis: The Emergence of Alternative Economic Practices
Aftermath: The Cultures of the Economic Crisis (book) 2012
Why Have Lending Programs Targeting Disadvantaged Small Business Borrowers Achieved So Little Success in the United States?
Economic Development Quarterly, 2011
Estimating the Capital Gap for Small Businesses in New York City
Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, 2011
The Continuum of Capital for Small and Micro Enterprises
2010
Vernacular Culture and Urban Economic Development
Journal of the American Planning Association, 2009
Consumer Financial Literacy and the Impact of Online Banking on the Financial Behavior of Lower-Income Bank Customers
The Journal of Consumer Affairs, Summer 2008
Microenterprise Development in the United States: Current Challenges and New Directions
Economic Development Quarterly, 2007
Reassessing the Role of Housing in Community-Based Urban Development
Housing Policy Debate, 2007
CDCs and the Changing Context for Urban Community Development: A Review of the Field and the Environment
Community Development: Journal of the Community Development Society, Winter 2006
Gender and Planning: A Reader
2005
By the Numbers: Measuring Community Development Corporations’ Capacity
Journal of Planning Education and Research, 2003
Bridging the Digital Divide: Technology, Community, and Public Policy
2002
Four Myths about the Digital Divide
Planning Theory and Practice, 2002
Community Technology Centers: Narrowing the Digital Divide in Low-Income, Urban Communities
Journal of Urban Affairs, 2001
Microenterprise and the Economic Development Toolkit: A Small Part of the Big Picture
Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship, 2000
Bootstrap Capital: Microenterprises and the American Poor
1999