Peter A Allard School of Law

Alexandra Flynn

Associate Professor
Director, Housing Research Collaborative
JD (Osgoode), LLM (Berkeley), PhD (Osgoode)

Profile

Professor Alexandra Flynn’s teaching and research focus on municipal law and governance, administrative law, and property law. She has published numerous peer-reviewed papers, public reports, media articles, and a book on how cities are legally understood in law and how they govern, including the overlapping geographies and governance of city spaces, and the formal and informal bodies that represent residents. She is the Director of the Housing Research Collaborative, which comprises CMHC and SSHRC-funded projects focused on Canada’s housing crisis: the Housing Assessment Resource Tools project, which helps communities to measure and address their housing need; and the Balanced Supply of Housing Node, which brings together academic and non-profit community organizations to research responsive land use practices and the financialization of housing. She is also working on several projects related to precariously housed people in Canadian cities, including the governance of personal property of precariously housed people, and human rights and tent encampments.

Professor Flynn has a long history working in law and policy. Prior to entering academia, she practiced banking and securities law at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy in New York, where she was the recipient of several Legal Aid awards. She also practiced Aboriginal Law at Ratcliff & Company in Vancouver, representing First Nations, and worked in a senior policy role at the City of Toronto focused on intergovernmental relationships.

Professor Flynn is a past TEDx speaker and a frequent media commentator. She has a long history of volunteer work in the areas of homelessness and access to justice.

Publications

Recent academic publications:

Alexandra Flynn, “Un-Democratizing The City? Unwritten Constitutional Principles And Ontario’s Strong Mayor Powers” (forthcoming in the Supreme Court Law Review, 2023). 

Alexandra Flynn, "The “Right to City” in the Era of Crowdsourcing” (2023) 17:1The Law & Ethics of Human Rights 1-21. 

Nicholas Blomley, Alexandra Flynn, Marie-Ève Sylvestre, and Nicholas Olson, "Law, Urban Space, and Precarious Property: The Governance of Poor People’s Possessions” (2023) 50 FordhamUrb. L.J. 223. Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol50/iss2/2

Alexandra Flynn, "Parks as Persons: Legal Innovation or Colonial Appropriation?” (2022) 50 FordhamUrb. L.J. 1. Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol50/iss1/1

 

Recent policy report:

Alexandra Flynn, Joe Hermer, Sue-Ann MacDonald, Kaitlin Schwan and Estair Van Wagner, Overview of Encampments Across Canada: A Right to Housing Approach (Office of the Federal Housing Advocate, 2022). Available at: https://www.homelesshub.ca/resource/overview-encampments-across-canada-right-housing-approach.

For a list of Professor Flynn's publications, please visit: https://guides.library.ubc.ca/allardpubs#flynn.

Alex Flynn Profile

Organization Affiliations

  • Centre for Feminist Legal Studies
  • Centre for Law and the Environment
  • Indigenous Legal Studies

Research Interests

  • Administrative law and regulatory governance
  • Law and cities
  • Law and society
  • Property, housing and real estate
  • Urban and municipal law

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