Meg Holden

Education

• BSc (Hons.) University of Victoria, 1996
• MSc Rutgers University, 1998
• PhD New School for Social Research, 2004

Biography

Meg Holden is an engaged researcher and teacher in the domains of urban and regional planning and policy, sustainable development and well-being, and pragmatic philosophy. An environmental pragmatist by personal conviction, Meg seeks paths toward new directions for cities where more and more of us can experience sustainability and justice.

Chercheuse et enseignante spécialiste dans les domaines de planification et politiques publiques urbaines et régionales, du développement durable et bien-être, et de la philosophie pragmatiste, Meg Holden suit un chemin de recherche marqué par un pragmatisme environnemental. Le but envisagé de ses travaux consiste des directions à suivre pour un avenir où une variété croissante des êtres urbains connaît la durabilité et la justice dans leur quotidien.

Meg directs the Centre for Sustainable Development. You can discover more about the CSD and the SAGA: Translanguaging and Sustainability project there or by reading the SAGA green paper. Meg is also a founding researcher with the Hey Neighbour Collective and conducted this systematic review of what we do and do not know about the implications of high-density living for social quality of life. Meg is a Registered Professional Planner and partners in a host of ways with non-academic and engaged academic partners toward urban and community transitions toward better understanding of what connects and sustains people and more-than-human nature.

In REM, Meg teaches Community Planning and Development (PLAN 406) as well as Sustainable Community Planning and Regional Development (REM 642). Meg also teaches in the Urban Studies Program, including courses on Urban Ethics and the Urban Innovation Lab.

Recent Peer-reviewed Articles

Holden, M. and Airas, A. 2024. Translanguaging for a more-than-English sustainability transition. Local Environment 30(5): 691-70

Sones, M., Holden, M., Kestens, Y., King, A.C., Rennie, M., Winters, M. 2024. (Dis)connected by design? Using participatory citizen science to uncover environmental determinants of social connectedness for youth in under-resourced neighbourhoods. BMC Public Health 24(article 3104).

Bautista, L., Bouikidis, A., Deol, P., Fassihi, F., Firth, C., Holden, M., Rennie, M., Sones, M. 2024. Collective capabilities complete a neighbourhood: community engaged planning and research in South Vancouver. Canadian Planning and Policy Journal No.2: 81-102.

Holden, M., Lee, R., Lusson, F., Martin, L, Mahdavi, D.V., Emami, S., Zhu, Y. 2024. The neighbour spectrum in community housing: pro-social, anti-social and asocial neighboring in Vancouver. Journal of Urban Affairs.

2024 Zhu, Y., Holden, M. and Schiff, R. Housing Vulnerability Reconsidered. Special issue of Housing, Theory and Society.41(4).

2024. Holden, M. Justifying the elephant in the growth machine: urban and planning theory understood through convention theory. In: Diaz-Bone, R./Larquier, G. (eds.) Handbook of economics and sociology of conventions. Cham: Springer.

My Books

• 2023 Holden, M. and Breux, S. (eds). Crossing Paths, Crossing Perspectives: Urban Studies in Quebec and British Columbia. Also published in French as: Regards Croisés sur les études urbaines au Québec et en Colombie-Brittanique. Laval: Presses Univ. Laval.
• 2019. About, C., Doussard, C., Holden, M. (eds). (re)Penser la fabrique de la ville? 20 ans d’écoquartiers à l’international : bilans et perspectives. Paris: Dunod-Colin. 224 p.
• 2017. Holden, M. Pragmatic justifications for the sustainable city: Acting in the common place. Routledge Series on Equity, Justice and the Sustainable City (J. Agyeman and S. Zavestoski, series eds).

Selected Shorter Commentary

2025 Holden, M. and Breux, S. Urban studies: Doing research when every city is different. The Conversation.

2024 Zhu, Y., Holden, M., Ali, H., and Muhurio, N. Debunking myths about community housing: what governments and the public should know. The Conversation. Reprinted in The Tyee.

2024 Holden, M. and Zhu, Y. Higher density living is changing the way neighbouring works in Canada. The Conversation. Reprinted in The Tyee.

2023 Holden, M., Lee, R. and Emami, S. Planners’ role in bending the curve of the emerging asocial society. Plan Canada (Spring), p.20-24. https://www.kelmanonline.com/httpdocs/files/CIP/plancanadaspring2023/index.html# Blogged by Hey Neighbour Collective here.

Please reach out if you’d like to see my full CV or if you are a student looking to pursue any of these research topics further!