News and Events

First Annual Faculty Research Fellow Lecture

Join the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the 

First Annual Faculty Research Fellow Lecture:
“The Architecture of Segregation: Public Policy and the Origin of Spatial Inequality”.

Tuesday, April 26, 2016
12 PM
Campus Center Multipurpose Room

Portraits-454-1
Featuring Dr. Paul Jargowsky, 
Professor of Public Policy
Director of the Center for
Urban Research and Urban Education (CURE)

Registration required. Click here to register. 

The Architecture of Segregation:  
Public Policy and the Origin of Spatial Inequality

Paul A. Jargowsky

 
Abstract

Since 2000, the number of people living in high-poverty ghettos, barrios, and slums has doubled – rising from 7.2 million to over 14 million.  As a result, more poor adults live in neighborhoods with little access to social capital and information networks that could lead to jobs.  More poor children grow up in neighborhoods that lack employed role models and attend schools that, on average, function at far lower levels than those of the middle class.  More of the poor are exposed to neighborhood conditions that harm physical and mental health. Spatial inequality – the pattern of racial and economic disparities at the neighborhood level – is not an accident or an inevitable outcome of market processes.  Rather, to a large degree it is driven by public policies that govern the growth and development of the cities and suburbs that make up metropolitan areas.  Constrained by exclusionary zoning and other land use policies, new housing construction produces local homogeneity and economic segregation at larger scales.  Given that the housing stock lasts for decades, these policies build a durable architecture of segregation that segregates the population by race and income. This lecture will address how unwise public policies have led to the concentration of poverty that we observe today. 

Next CURE seminar: April 8, Dr. Waverly Duck, University of Pittsburgh, on residents¹ perspectives on drug dealing and law enforcement in a small black town

April-2016-CURE-Seminar-Poster-Revision-1Please join us for our next seminar:
“An Ethnographic Portrait of Drug Dealing and Policing in a Small Black Town”

Waverly DuckWaverly Duck, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Pittsburgh

Friday, April 8, 2016 
12:15pm – 1:30pm
Executive Dining Room, Campus Center
Lunch will be served

This project explores residents’ perspectives on drug dealing and law enforcement in a small black town, providing new insights into a critical challenge facing low-income minority communities. In-depth ethnographic studies provide a unique opportunity to capture the cultural narrative of deprivation that exists in poor African American neighborhoods today. Few legitimate economic opportunities are available to these residents, and those that do exist come with risks. For example, with no legal jobs nearby, residents must commute long distances by car to get to work. Dr. Duck examines the accounts of several residents with regard to law enforcement and drug dealing over a seven-year period, and shows how they are embedded in a local interaction order—a set of patterned relations governed by endogenous rules and conventions whereby residents organize and coordinate their social lives. In doing so, he demonstrates the complex intersection of family dynamics, inadequate education, unemployment, debt, drug dealing, contact with law enforcement, imprisonment, and criminal records woven into the fabric of residents’ lives.

Waverly Duck is an urban sociologist whose primary research examines the social order of neighborhoods and institutional settings. His academic areas of interest are urban sociology, inequality (race, class, gender, health and age), qualitative methods, culture, ethnomethodology and ethnography. His research on masculinity, health, crime and violence, and inequality has appeared in the journals Ethnography, Journal of Urban Affairs, Sociological Focus, Critical Sociology, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Crime, Law and Social Change and African American Studies. His book, No Way Out: Precarious Living in the Shadow of Poverty and Drug Dealing with the University of Chicago Press, challenges the common misconception of urban ghettos as chaotic places where drug dealing, street crime, and random violence make daily life dangerous for everyone. No Way Out explores how neighborhood residents make sense of their lives within severe constraints as they choose among very unrewarding prospects. His second manuscript, Ethnographies is under contract with Roudtledge Press, examines the history of ethnography in sociological research.

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CURE seminars are free and open to the public.  No registration is required. 

Visitor Parking
Parking in Rutgers–Camden lots is by permit only. Visitors to Rutgers–Camden should obtain a temporary permit to park in a lot from 8 a.m. Mondays through 5 p.m. Fridays.? Contact Parking and Transportation for more information.?

Parking and Transportation
(within the Rutgers University Police Department)?
409 North Fourth Street?
856-225-6137
?Please visit these sites for directions to campus and to view a campus map

Next CURE seminar: Juan Rivero, J.D. , Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University – Friday, February 26, 2016

CureSeminar_2PosterRevisionPlease join us for our next seminar:
“”Saving” Coney Island: The Construction of Neighborhood Heritage”

Juan Rivero

Juan Rivero, J.D.
Doctoral candidate
Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University

Friday, February 26, 2016 
12:15pm – 1:30pm
Faculty Lounge, 3rd Floor Armitage Hall
Lunch will be served

 

Landmark or blight? Treasure or garbage? Features of historic neighborhoods — often those that one would least expect — evoke this type of question, pitting against each other divergent views about the meaning and the future of these places. This talk examines a historic preservation controversy that surrounded the redevelopment efforts in Coney Island during the late 00s. This longstanding amusement district in Brooklyn, New York inspired widespread agreement about its importance as a heritage destination. This apparent agreement, however, belied profound differences over the neighborhood elements that contributed to its iconic stature and about how those should relate to plans for the area’s redevelopment. Because heritage value is not an inherent attribute of the built environment, these conflicting cultural claims raise questions about how a sense of heritage comes about and what purpose it serves. My discussion explores the processes by which elements of Coney Island came to be valorized and classified as objects of heritage. By reconceptualizing heritage as a process–as opposed to an inherent quality–I recast debates about the benefits and burdens of preservation and redevelopment. I also pose a challenge to preservation efforts that assert value claims and issue redevelopment demands without first tackling the anterior question of why and how places of heritage matter.  

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CURE seminars are free and open to the public.  No registration is required. 

Visitor Parking
Parking in Rutgers–Camden lots is by permit only. Visitors to Rutgers–Camden should obtain atemporary permit to park in a lot from 8 a.m. Mondays through 5 p.m. Fridays.? Contact Parking and Transportation for more information.?

Parking and Transportation
(within the Rutgers University Police Department)?
409 North Fourth Street?
856-225-6137
?Please visit these sites for directions to campus and to view a campus map

Next CURE seminar: Dr. Carolyn Adams, Temple University – Friday, January 29, 2016

Cure Seminar January 29th PosterPlease join us for our next seminar and book-signing event:
“From the Outside In”

Carolyn Adams

 

Dr. Carolyn Adams
Professor of Geography and Urban Studies,C
Temple University

Friday, January 29, 2016 
12:15pm – 1:30pm
Faculty Lounge, 3rd Floor Armitage Hall
Lunch will be served

 

 From the Outside In

Hospitals, universities, cultural institutions and other major nonprofit institutions are driving both the economic and physical redevelopment of central Philadelphia.  What are the implications of assigning substantial power over the city’s future to nonprofit institutions whose governing boards are dominated by residents of the suburbs?  Based on her recent book, Adams will address that question.  

Books will be available for purchase and the author’s signature.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CURE seminars are free and open to the public.  No registration is required. 

Visitor Parking
Parking in Rutgers–Camden lots is by permit only. Visitors to Rutgers–Camden should obtain atemporary permit to park in a lot from 8 a.m. Mondays through 5 p.m. Fridays.? Contact Parking and Transportation for more information.?

Parking and Transportation
(within the Rutgers University Police Department)?
409 North Fourth Street?
856-225-6137
?Please visit these sites for directions to campus and to view a campus map