Card, Kenton

Assistant Professor, Public Administration & Urban Planning

School of Planning, Policy and Environmental Studies

Education

PhD, Urban Planning, University of California, Los Angeles

MS, Architecture, Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus (Germany)

BA, Sociology (high honors), Marlboro College, VT

Bio

Kenton Card (he/him) is an urban planner, community organizer, and filmmaker. He investigates the political economy of housing, with expertise in tenant rights, social movements, and mitigating evictions and displacement.

Prior to joining San José State University, he served as a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs at the University of Minnesota and the Initiative on Cities at Boston University.

Kenton received the 2024 Janet Smith Emerging Activist Scholar Research Award from the Urban Affairs Association.

His research examines contemporary progressive electoral politics, specifically examining the political mechanisms driving, communication around, and economic consequences of Democratic Socialist housing market reforms.

Kenton’s professional experience includes nonprofit leadership, policy evaluation, and documentary film production. He serves on the board of the Minneapolis-based housing cooperative called Riverton Community Housing. Recent work evaluates how new tenant rights impact housing markets, which he has written about for the general public. Previously, he helped design and support the passage of Louisville’s Anti-Displacement Ordinance.

Kenton’s films include the award-winning educational documentary Geographies of Racial Capitalism with Ruth Wilson Gilmore.