My goal is to elevate evidence-based solutions to guide policymaking and investments that challenge inequitable systems and advance racial justice in urban and rural communities.
Corianne Payton Scally is a senior fellow in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute where she explores affordable housing and community development policy and practice from large cities to rural towns. From evaluating federal programs to assessing philanthropic investments, Scally’s research focuses on multiple social determinants of health—from the affordable housing supply to quality drinking water to access to health and human services—and the policy environments and stakeholder capacities that affect community opportunity and well-being.
Scally leads mixed method research projects, directing extensive primary data collection via site visits, interviews, focus groups, and surveys, and analysis of secondary and administrative data to evaluate program processes, performance, and outcomes. Recent studies have focused on how technical assistance is provided to housing organizations, how service coordination works for residents of public housing, how to preserve and increase affordable rental housing supply through innovative finance and collaboration, and how to improve rural data and support asset-based development via a national typology of rural census tracts. Her work has been published in books, research reports, policy briefs, and refereed journals and featured on NPR, Marketplace, the Washington Post, and USA Today.
She started her career as a housing and community economic developer and earned tenure as an associate professor of urban planning. From 2015-2016, she led data and research initiatives at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service under contract with the Urban Institute. She received her PhD in urban planning and policy development from Rutgers University.