Urban Studies Journal Annual Lecture: AAG 2018

9th Apr 2018

Urban Studies Journal Annual Lecture: Explaining the Paradoxes of Inequality in the Changing Metropolis

Professor Robert J. Sampson, Harvard University will deliver the 2018 Urban Studies Journal Annual Lecture at the American Association of Geographers 2018 Annual Meeting on Thursday 12th April 3.20pm at Grand Ballroom A, 5th Floor, Sheraton New Orleans.

The lecture will address the paradoxes of inequality in the changing metropolis.

Abstract

American cities today are simultaneously the same and different from Wilson’s classic portrayal in The Truly Disadvantaged, published just over thirty years ago. Concentrated poverty and racial segregation endure, and the dominant accounts of increasing income inequality paint a grim picture as well. But the dramatic drop in violent crime, immigration, the suburbanization of poverty, mass incarceration, technological innovation, gentrification, and other macrosocial trends have transformed the urban scene. The paradoxical result is that cities are both better and worse off. In this paper, I put forth a unifying framework on persistence and change in urban inequality, highlighting a theory of neighborhood effects and the higher-order structures that characterize the contemporary metropolis. I also present new data sources and empirical analyses. Although based mainly on the largest U.S. cities, I consider global implications.

Agenda

3.20pm - 3.30pm Introduction by Jon Bannister
3.30pm - 4.30pm Presentation by Robert Sampson
4.30pm - 5.00pm Q&A

Further details available on AAG website.