Nemoy Lewis
Assistant Professor
Department: School of Urban & Regional Planning
Email: nemoy.lewis@torontomu.ca
Education: BA & MA (University of Toronto, Geography), PhD (Queens University, Human Geography)
Discipline: Urban & Regional Planning
Areas of Expertise:
Anti-Blackness & Housing
Financialization of Housing
Political Economy of Housing
Race & Inequality
Urban Housing Policy
Research Interests
Financialization of Housing; Blackness and Anti-Blackness in Planning; Evictions and Displacement; Urban Racial Capitalism; Affordable Housing; Political Economy of Housing; Human Right to Housing; Urban Social Policy; Housing Justice Movements; Gentrification & Neighbourhood Dynamics.
Dr. Nemoy Lewis is an assistant professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning. He received his PhD in human geography from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Lewis earned both his undergraduate and master's degrees in geography at the University of Toronto. For his doctoral research, Lewis analyzed the ongoing foreclosure crisis in the United States and its effects on Black people and low-income communities in Chicago, Illinois, and in Jacksonville, Florida. Dr. Lewis' research explores how space is racialized by examining the co-production of racialization and financialization in North American urban housing markets, and the growing affordability problems impacting Black renters. His current research investigates a relatively new type of financialized landlord – primarily private equity firms, asset management firms, and REITs – and their impacts on the physical infrastructure and urban social geography of disenfranchised communities.
Dr. Lewis recently commenced two major research projects that explore access to housing for Black Canadians. The first study examines the housing affordability and eviction crises by exploring financialized landlords and the broader consequences for Black renters during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto. His second project aims to understand the distinct challenges Black Canadians face in their pursuit of home ownership.
Dr. Lewis has co-authored a paper on race and urban politics in Ferguson, Missouri, in the leading geography journal, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space (2016), and a book chapter for a special collection, Gentrification as a Global Strategy: Neil Smith and Beyond (Routledge, 2018). Most recently, he wrote an invited commentary piece about the unexpected nexus between anti-Black police violence and real estate financing in the United States for the journal EPD: Society and Space. Additionally, Lewis has a forthcoming invited book chapter entitled, "The Impact of Foreclosures on the Home Environments and Education of Black Youth in the U.S." in the text Education in the Cosmopolis.
Dr. Nemoy Lewis received the Dean’s Scholarly, Research, and Creative Activity Award (2025–26) in recognition of his outstanding contributions to scholarship on racialized eviction, housing financialization, and the uneven geographies of Black displacement in urban Canada.
Scholarly Calling
I came to this work through a deep concern with how housing systems normalize abandonment, dispossession, and racialized harm.
What keeps me here is an equally deep respect for the ways Black communities continue to resist, care for one another, and imagine more just futures.
Related Content
- Cowen, D., & Lewis, N. (2016). Anti-Blackness and Urban Geopolitical Economy: Reflection on Ferguson and the Suburbanization of the ‘Internal Colony’. Society & Space. Retrieved from https://www.societyandspace.org/articles/anti-blackness-and-urban-geopolitical-economy (external link)
- Lewis, N. (In Press). The Impact of Foreclosures on The Home Environments and Education Of Black Youth In The United States. In S. R. Schecter & C. E. James (Eds.), Education in the Cosmopolis: Routledge.
- Cowen, D., & Lewis, N. (2018). Revanchism and the Racial State: Ferguson as ‘Internal Colony’. In A. A. N. Benach (Ed.), Gentrification as Global Strategy- Neil Smith and Beyond (pp. 259-279). New York, NY: Routledge.
- Lewis, N. (2017). "Anti-Foreclosure Activism in Chicago." In Neoliberal Chicago edited by Larry Bennett, Roberta Garner and Euan Hague. Champaign, 225. Chicago, IL: Illinois University of Illinois Press
- Lewis, N. (2020). Anti-Blackness Beyond the State: Real Estate Finance and the Making of Urban Racial Capitalism. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space.
- Lewis, N. (2020). Review Of Race for Profit: How Banks And The Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, University of North Carolina Press, October 2019. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. Retrieved from https://www.societyandspace.org/articles/race-for-profit-review (external link)
- Lewis, N. (2021, March 24th 2021). Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor montre dans « Race for profit » comment les pratiques du secteur de l'immobilier et les politiques publiques ont contribué, aux États-Unis, à appauvrir et marginaliser les personnes noires. Dièses CONTRE LES PRÉCONÇUS'. Retrieved from https://dieses.fr/comment-le-secteur-de-limmobilier-a-maintenu-la-segregation-aux-etats-unis (external link)
- Buying While Black: Barriers to Black Home Ownership (In collaboration with Black Planning Project)
- Housing Insecurity for Black Renters: COVID-19 and the Fight to Remain Housed
For the latest updates, please visit the faculty page linked below.
Selected Media & Activities
Explore Dr. Lewis’s research on racialized evictions, predatory landlord practices, and housing insecurity in Toronto’s rental market.
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Learn more about Dr. Lewis’s research on eviction patterns in Toronto, showing how financialized landlords disproportionately target Black neighbourhoods.
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Listen to Dr. Lewis discuss how racialized eviction patterns intersect with AI in today’s rental housing system, and how longstanding inequalities are being reproduced through new technologies.