Call for Papers: JUA Special Issue on Central and South America

Central and South America, along with the Caribbean Islands, face unique urban challenges. From being “economic miracles” in the 1950s through the so-called “lost decade” in the 1980s, this global region has also been the laboratory for testing radical neoliberal policies since the mid 1970s and is now a focal point of a worldwide economic…

More Thoughts on Jerusalem

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts on the book Jerusalem: The Spatial Politics of a Divided Metropolis. Previous posts were written by Anne Shlay, Zachary Neal, and Deirdre Oakley. By Rachel Garshick Kleit Anne asked us to think about how the book helps us to think about the problem of Jerusalem's…

Toward a Community Paradigm for Socioeconomic Attainment

By David Imbroscio Much of American urban policy focuses on the limited nature of economic opportunities for disadvantaged populations, something that impedes upward social mobility. In essence, while it often goes unacknowledged (or even recognized), it is the powerful principle of meritocracy that is violated by these blocked opportunities and barriers to social mobility; that…

Some Relections on Jerusalem: The Spatial Politics of a Divided Metropolis

This is the third in a series of blog posts evolving from a panel at UAA 2016. In Part 1, Anne Shlay introduced her book Jerusalem: The Spatial Politics of a Divided Metropolis, co-written with Gillad Rosen. In Part 2, Zachary Neal shared his thoughts on the book. By Deirdre Oakley I’ll begin by saying…

Blog Exclusive Book Review: Ghetto

By Deirdre Oakley and Clinton Boyd, Jr., Georgia State University. Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea. By Mitchell Duneier: New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016. In this new, very timely and well-written book, Sociologist Mitchell Duneier takes on the complex challenge of documenting the history and ever-changing meaning…

Jerusalem: Response #1

This is the second in a series of blog posts evolving from a panel at UAA 2016. In Part 1, Anne Shlay introduced her book Jerusalem: The Spatial Politics of a Divided Metropolis, co-written with Gillad Rosen. By Zachary Neal In March, I had the privilege of participating in a panel discussing Anne Shlay and…

Jerusalem: The Spatial Politics of a Divided Metropolis

This is the first in a series of blog posts around the book Jerusalem: The Spatial Politics of a Divided Metropolis. By Anne B. Shlay In 2006, I received a Fulbright Research Scholarship to study Israeli housing markets.  I was fascinated by the high density levels in which Jerusalemites lived and thought that knowing more…

Predatory Equity and Affordable Housing in NYC

By Desiree Fields From 2010-2012, I was conducting fieldwork in New York City, focusing on an aggressive wave of private equity investment in the city’s rent-stabilized housing market during the mid-2000s housing boom. Readers may be familiar with this trend through the story of Stuyvesant Town, a complex consisting of nearly 10,000 apartments in Manhattan:…

Urbanization, Land Development, and Land Financing: Evidence from Chinese Cities

By Lin Ye and Alfred M. Wu China's urbanization is significant worldwide. The country's urban population proportion increased from 18 percent in 1978 to 51 percent in 2011. It is estimated that the urban population in China will exceed 60 percent in 2020 and 70 percent in 2050. This unprecedented urbanization process is characterized by…

Book Review Preview: Blaming the Poor

By David Imbroscio Susan D. Greenbaum, Blaming the Poor: The Long Shadow of the Moynihan Report on Cruel Images About Poverty (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2015). The Moynihan Report’s “regrettably durable impact” on “race relations and social policy in the US, with an emphasis on the humiliating image the report cast of poor…