North American PB Research Board

Gary Hytrek is a professor of social geography at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) and the director of the M.A. program in geography. He is a community-based researcher trained in urban political economy whose research focuses on movement building and the potential to generate meaningful spaces of participation and self-determination. His research is driven by questions connected to social justice and human well-being. Hytrek has 25 years of experience conducting community-based research in Costa Rica, South Georgia, and in Los Angeles County. Hytrek founded La Escuela Bilingüe Para Los Latinos, an entrepreneurial literacy training program in South Georgia, and more recently co-founded the Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs and a Healthy Community. In 2013, Hytrek brought Participatory Budgeting (PB) to Long Beach. He served on The California Endowment’s Planning Committee that established the Building Healthy Communities Initiative (BHC) in Long Beach, and later as The Endowment’s Evaluation and Learning Specialist. Currently, he is associate editor of Latin American Perspectives, and member of the Liberty Hill Bold Vision Funding Board. Hytrek has authored or coauthored over 50 articles, reports, and opinion pieces on topics ranging from positive youth development, housing affordability, workplace conditions, and participatory democracy for The California Endowment, Urban Geography, International Sociology, Journal of Historical Sociology, Latin American Perspectives, among other journals. His book, American Transformed: Globalization, Inequality, and Power, was published by Oxford University Press.