Dr Patricia Canelas

Biography

Patricia Canelas is Course Director and a Lecturer for the Master's in Sustainable Urban Development at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Kellogg College. She has previously held academic positions at University College London and the University of Reading, and in Portugal at Escola Superior de Actividades Imobiliárias and Universidade Católica.

Before returning to academia, she practised as an architect and urbanist for a decade and continues to engage in policy-making and advisory work at local and national levels in the UK and the EU. 
She holds a PhD in Planning from the Bartlett, UCL, a Master’s in Architecture from University of California, Berkeley, a postgraduate degree in Sustainable Urban Planning and Design from Universidade Católica, and a five-year degree in Architecture from Universidade Lusíada.

Research and teaching

Patricia’s research and research-led teaching examine land institutions as distinct configurations of ownership structures, development rights and obligations and politics, through which value is produced, appropriated, and redistributed across the built environment.

Her empirical research engages with urban development processes across Europe, particularly in the UK, Northern Europe and Portugal. It examines how different land institutions operate and evolve across contexts, including London’s Great Estates as long-term and concentrated ownership regimes; planning deregulation and land value capture as reconfigurations of development rights and value distribution; and hybrid arrangements such as public–private partnerships for the provision of public goods, including affordable housing and public space.

This comparative perspective highlights how different configurations of land institutions yield divergent development outcomes—from concentrated value capture to planned redistributive approaches, with implications for affordability, access to public space, and urban equity more broadly.

Keywords

• The political economy of urban development
• Land institutions 
• Urban development
• Value formation and distribution 
• Urban governance 
• Politics and policy
• Affordable housing

Doctoral students

• Tyler Alley

• Monique Bouchard

• Sam Ho

• Hira Ogur

Publications

Journal Articles, Books and Book Chapters

Canelas, P. (forthcoming) ‘Rethinking Urban Stakeholders: Theories and Practices’. In Anwar, N., Davidson, M., Lees, L., Miao, J. and Moore, S., (eds). The Routledge Handbook of Critical Urban Research. London: Routledge.

Canelas, P. (2025) Delivering affordable housing through public-private partnerships: ambiguity, complexity and ideology. Habitat International, 164, 103517.

Canelas, P. and Hoehnk, J. (2025)  Practices of digital placemaking: accelerating place attachment. Urban Research and Practice, 18 (3), 378-396.

Clifford, B., Canelas, P., Dunning, R., Ferm, J., Livingstone, N. and Lord, A. (2025) On the need for caution in using ‘big data’ for built environment research: A response to Chng et al. (2024). Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 57 (5), 669-686.

Canelas, P. (2025) Urban stewardship and net zero: The case of the London Landed Estates. In: Medeiros, E. (ed). Self-sufficiency and Sustainable Cities and Regions: Planning for Sustainable, Circular and Carbon-Neutral Development. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 77–93.

Branco, R., Canelas, P. and Alves, S. (2024) The Governance of Urban Regeneration: Twenty years of policy in Lisbon, Portugal. Cities, November 2024, 105324.

Alves, S., Branco, R. Canelas, P. (2024) O município de Lisboa e a execução do Regime Especial de Reabilitação de Imóveis Arrendados (RECRIA): entre as estruturas e a agência. (The municipality of Lisbon and the implementation of the Special Regime for the Rehabilitation of Leased Properties (RECRIA): between structures and agency. Revista Analise Social

Canelas, P., and Alves, S. (2024) The governance of affordable housing through public-private partnerships: Critical entanglements. Land Use Policy, 143: 107193

Canelas, P. & Noring, L. (2022) Governmentalities of land value capture in urban redevelopment. Land Use Policy, 122, 106396.

Canelas, P., Clifford, B., Ferm, J., Livingston, N. (2022) Hard, soft and thin governance spaces in land use change: Comparing office-to-residential conversions in England, Scotland and the Netherlands. European Planning Studies, 30 (4): 725–743.

Canelas, P. & Raco, M. (2021) The Work that Place Does: The London Landed Estates and a Curatorial Approach to Estate Management. European Urban and Regional Studies, 28 (3): 263–281.

Canelas, P. & Baptista, I. (2021) Guerrilla Urbanism, Guerrilla Governance: Governing Neighbourhoods in ‘with-COVID’ Times. Town Planning Review, 92 (3): 279–284. 

Ferm, J., Clifford, B., Canelas, P. and Livingstone, N. (2021) Emerging Problematics of Deregulating the Urban: The Case of Permitted Development in England. Urban Studies, 58 (10): 2040–2058.

Clifford, B., Ferm, J., Livingstone, N., and Canelas, P. (2019) Understanding the Impacts of Deregulation in Planning. Turning Offices into Homes? London: Palgrave, Macmillian.

Canelas, P. (2019) Place-making and the London Estates: Land Ownership and the Built Environment. Journal of Urban Design, 24(2), pp. 232–248.

Canelas, P. (2018) Challenges and Emerging Practices in Development Value Capture. In Ferm, J. and Tomaney, J. (eds). Planning Practice: Critical Perspectives. London: Routledge, pp. 70–84.

Reports, Policy and Policy Analysis

2024 Lourenco, P. et al A practical guide to the New European Bauhaus self-assessment method and tool, Gkatzogias, K., Romano, E. and Negro, P. editor(s), Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.

2023 ‘Lisbon’, In Whitehead, C., et al. Financialization in 13 cities - an international comparative report, pp. 128-131. Realdania and London School of Economy.

Canelas, P. 2022. A governança da habitação acessível em parceria com o setor privado. (The governance of affordable housing in partnership with the private sector). Confidencial Imobiliário, Janeiro, Research, Habitação, pp. 26-27.

Clifford, B., Canelas, P., Ferm, J., Livingstone, N., Lord, A. and Dunning, R. 2020. Research into the quality standard of homes delivered through change of use permitted development rights. Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government.

Canelas, P. and Baptista, I. 2020. COVID-19 and the ‘old-fashioned’ idea of neighbourhoods. The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine Oxford COVID-19 Evidence.

Silva Pinto, F. & Canelas, P. 2020 Estratégia Local de Habitação do Município de Setúbal 2020-2030 (Housing Strategy for a Municipality in Metropolitan Lisbon).

Clifford, B., Ferm, J., Livingstone, N., and Canelas, P. 2018. Assessing the impacts of extending Permitted Development Rights to office-to-residential change of use in England. London: RICS Research Trust.