Podcast appearances and mentions of Richard E Ocejo

It's September, which means millions of young learners across the country are dusting off their backpacks and heading back to school. But a new study from Gallup and The Walton Family Foundation has shown that students are less engaged, and feel less challenged than last year, and about half of them have no plans to get a Bachelor's degree right after high school. Host Brittany Luse is joined by Karin Klein, education reporter and author of Rethinking College: A Guide to Thriving Without a Degree, and NPR Education Desk correspondent and Senior Editor Cory Turner to parse through what has next generation feeling despondent and if we need to rethink the purpose of high school.Then, Brittany is on the housing hunt, but she's found that even outside major urban areas, small cities across the country are rapidly gentrifying. Richard E. Ocejo, author of Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City, joins Brittany to look at what happens when big city gentrifiers move to town and how some of them have rebranded gentrification.Want to be featured on IBAM? Record a voice memo responding to Brittany's question at the end of the episode and send it to ibam@npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Newburgh is a small postindustrial city of some twenty-eight thousand people located sixty miles north of New York City in the Hudson River Valley. Like many other similarly sized cities across America, it has been beset with poverty and crime after decades of decline, with few opportunities for its predominantly minority residents.  Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City (Princeton UP, 2024) tells the story of how Newburgh started gentrifying, describing what happens when White creative professionals seek out racially diverse and working-class communities and revealing how gentrification is increasingly happening outside large city centers in places where it unfolds in new ways. As New York City's housing market becomes too expensive for even the middle class, many urbanites are bypassing the suburbs and moving to smaller cities like Newburgh, where housing is affordable and historic. Richard Ocejo takes readers into the lives of these newcomers, examining the different ways they navigate racial difference and inequality among Newburgh's much less privileged local residents, and showing how stakeholders in the city's revitalization reframe themselves and gentrification to cast the displacement they cause to minority groups in a positive light. An intimate exploration of the moral dilemma at the heart of gentrification, Sixty Miles Upriver explains how progressive White gentrifiers justify controversial urban changes as morally good, and how their actions carry profound and lasting consequences for vulnerable residents of color. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Newburgh is a small postindustrial city of some twenty-eight thousand people located sixty miles north of New York City in the Hudson River Valley. Like many other similarly sized cities across America, it has been beset with poverty and crime after decades of decline, with few opportunities for its predominantly minority residents.  Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City (Princeton UP, 2024) tells the story of how Newburgh started gentrifying, describing what happens when White creative professionals seek out racially diverse and working-class communities and revealing how gentrification is increasingly happening outside large city centers in places where it unfolds in new ways. As New York City's housing market becomes too expensive for even the middle class, many urbanites are bypassing the suburbs and moving to smaller cities like Newburgh, where housing is affordable and historic. Richard Ocejo takes readers into the lives of these newcomers, examining the different ways they navigate racial difference and inequality among Newburgh's much less privileged local residents, and showing how stakeholders in the city's revitalization reframe themselves and gentrification to cast the displacement they cause to minority groups in a positive light. An intimate exploration of the moral dilemma at the heart of gentrification, Sixty Miles Upriver explains how progressive White gentrifiers justify controversial urban changes as morally good, and how their actions carry profound and lasting consequences for vulnerable residents of color. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/latino-studies

Newburgh is a small postindustrial city of some twenty-eight thousand people located sixty miles north of New York City in the Hudson River Valley. Like many other similarly sized cities across America, it has been beset with poverty and crime after decades of decline, with few opportunities for its predominantly minority residents.  Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City (Princeton UP, 2024) tells the story of how Newburgh started gentrifying, describing what happens when White creative professionals seek out racially diverse and working-class communities and revealing how gentrification is increasingly happening outside large city centers in places where it unfolds in new ways. As New York City's housing market becomes too expensive for even the middle class, many urbanites are bypassing the suburbs and moving to smaller cities like Newburgh, where housing is affordable and historic. Richard Ocejo takes readers into the lives of these newcomers, examining the different ways they navigate racial difference and inequality among Newburgh's much less privileged local residents, and showing how stakeholders in the city's revitalization reframe themselves and gentrification to cast the displacement they cause to minority groups in a positive light. An intimate exploration of the moral dilemma at the heart of gentrification, Sixty Miles Upriver explains how progressive White gentrifiers justify controversial urban changes as morally good, and how their actions carry profound and lasting consequences for vulnerable residents of color. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Newburgh is a small postindustrial city of some twenty-eight thousand people located sixty miles north of New York City in the Hudson River Valley. Like many other similarly sized cities across America, it has been beset with poverty and crime after decades of decline, with few opportunities for its predominantly minority residents.  Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City (Princeton UP, 2024) tells the story of how Newburgh started gentrifying, describing what happens when White creative professionals seek out racially diverse and working-class communities and revealing how gentrification is increasingly happening outside large city centers in places where it unfolds in new ways. As New York City's housing market becomes too expensive for even the middle class, many urbanites are bypassing the suburbs and moving to smaller cities like Newburgh, where housing is affordable and historic. Richard Ocejo takes readers into the lives of these newcomers, examining the different ways they navigate racial difference and inequality among Newburgh's much less privileged local residents, and showing how stakeholders in the city's revitalization reframe themselves and gentrification to cast the displacement they cause to minority groups in a positive light. An intimate exploration of the moral dilemma at the heart of gentrification, Sixty Miles Upriver explains how progressive White gentrifiers justify controversial urban changes as morally good, and how their actions carry profound and lasting consequences for vulnerable residents of color. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Newburgh is a small postindustrial city of some twenty-eight thousand people located sixty miles north of New York City in the Hudson River Valley. Like many other similarly sized cities across America, it has been beset with poverty and crime after decades of decline, with few opportunities for its predominantly minority residents.  Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City (Princeton UP, 2024) tells the story of how Newburgh started gentrifying, describing what happens when White creative professionals seek out racially diverse and working-class communities and revealing how gentrification is increasingly happening outside large city centers in places where it unfolds in new ways. As New York City's housing market becomes too expensive for even the middle class, many urbanites are bypassing the suburbs and moving to smaller cities like Newburgh, where housing is affordable and historic. Richard Ocejo takes readers into the lives of these newcomers, examining the different ways they navigate racial difference and inequality among Newburgh's much less privileged local residents, and showing how stakeholders in the city's revitalization reframe themselves and gentrification to cast the displacement they cause to minority groups in a positive light. An intimate exploration of the moral dilemma at the heart of gentrification, Sixty Miles Upriver explains how progressive White gentrifiers justify controversial urban changes as morally good, and how their actions carry profound and lasting consequences for vulnerable residents of color. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Newburgh is a small postindustrial city of some twenty-eight thousand people located sixty miles north of New York City in the Hudson River Valley. Like many other similarly sized cities across America, it has been beset with poverty and crime after decades of decline, with few opportunities for its predominantly minority residents.  Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City (Princeton UP, 2024) tells the story of how Newburgh started gentrifying, describing what happens when White creative professionals seek out racially diverse and working-class communities and revealing how gentrification is increasingly happening outside large city centers in places where it unfolds in new ways. As New York City's housing market becomes too expensive for even the middle class, many urbanites are bypassing the suburbs and moving to smaller cities like Newburgh, where housing is affordable and historic. Richard Ocejo takes readers into the lives of these newcomers, examining the different ways they navigate racial difference and inequality among Newburgh's much less privileged local residents, and showing how stakeholders in the city's revitalization reframe themselves and gentrification to cast the displacement they cause to minority groups in a positive light. An intimate exploration of the moral dilemma at the heart of gentrification, Sixty Miles Upriver explains how progressive White gentrifiers justify controversial urban changes as morally good, and how their actions carry profound and lasting consequences for vulnerable residents of color. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Newburgh is a small postindustrial city of some twenty-eight thousand people located sixty miles north of New York City in the Hudson River Valley. Like many other similarly sized cities across America, it has been beset with poverty and crime after decades of decline, with few opportunities for its predominantly minority residents.  Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City (Princeton UP, 2024) tells the story of how Newburgh started gentrifying, describing what happens when White creative professionals seek out racially diverse and working-class communities and revealing how gentrification is increasingly happening outside large city centers in places where it unfolds in new ways. As New York City's housing market becomes too expensive for even the middle class, many urbanites are bypassing the suburbs and moving to smaller cities like Newburgh, where housing is affordable and historic. Richard Ocejo takes readers into the lives of these newcomers, examining the different ways they navigate racial difference and inequality among Newburgh's much less privileged local residents, and showing how stakeholders in the city's revitalization reframe themselves and gentrification to cast the displacement they cause to minority groups in a positive light. An intimate exploration of the moral dilemma at the heart of gentrification, Sixty Miles Upriver explains how progressive White gentrifiers justify controversial urban changes as morally good, and how their actions carry profound and lasting consequences for vulnerable residents of color.

Newburgh is a small postindustrial city of some twenty-eight thousand people located sixty miles north of New York City in the Hudson River Valley. Like many other similarly sized cities across America, it has been beset with poverty and crime after decades of decline, with few opportunities for its predominantly minority residents.  Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City (Princeton UP, 2024) tells the story of how Newburgh started gentrifying, describing what happens when White creative professionals seek out racially diverse and working-class communities and revealing how gentrification is increasingly happening outside large city centers in places where it unfolds in new ways. As New York City's housing market becomes too expensive for even the middle class, many urbanites are bypassing the suburbs and moving to smaller cities like Newburgh, where housing is affordable and historic. Richard Ocejo takes readers into the lives of these newcomers, examining the different ways they navigate racial difference and inequality among Newburgh's much less privileged local residents, and showing how stakeholders in the city's revitalization reframe themselves and gentrification to cast the displacement they cause to minority groups in a positive light. An intimate exploration of the moral dilemma at the heart of gentrification, Sixty Miles Upriver explains how progressive White gentrifiers justify controversial urban changes as morally good, and how their actions carry profound and lasting consequences for vulnerable residents of color. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Newburgh is a small postindustrial city of some twenty-eight thousand people located sixty miles north of New York City in the Hudson River Valley. Like many other similarly sized cities across America, it has been beset with poverty and crime after decades of decline, with few opportunities for its predominantly minority residents.  Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City (Princeton UP, 2024) tells the story of how Newburgh started gentrifying, describing what happens when White creative professionals seek out racially diverse and working-class communities and revealing how gentrification is increasingly happening outside large city centers in places where it unfolds in new ways. As New York City's housing market becomes too expensive for even the middle class, many urbanites are bypassing the suburbs and moving to smaller cities like Newburgh, where housing is affordable and historic. Richard Ocejo takes readers into the lives of these newcomers, examining the different ways they navigate racial difference and inequality among Newburgh's much less privileged local residents, and showing how stakeholders in the city's revitalization reframe themselves and gentrification to cast the displacement they cause to minority groups in a positive light. An intimate exploration of the moral dilemma at the heart of gentrification, Sixty Miles Upriver explains how progressive White gentrifiers justify controversial urban changes as morally good, and how their actions carry profound and lasting consequences for vulnerable residents of color. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Racial capitalism, invisible but threaded throughout the world, shapes our lives. Focusing on the experiences of white, Black, and Latinx residents of Cincinnati, Sarah Mayorga argues that residents' interpretations of their circumstances, what she calls urban specters, are often partial recognitions of the exploitation and dehumanization produced by racial capitalism.  In Urban Specters: The Everyday Harms of Racial Capitalism (UNC Press, 2023), much scholarly work on racial capitalism has necessarily focused on historical, theoretical, and macro-level accounts. Mayorga takes these vital insights and applies them to two contemporary working-class neighborhoods, centering the lives of working-class and poor people. Using data from interviews with 117 residents, Mayorga maps how racial capitalism creates the everyday harms people know all too well. Chronic underdevelopment, private property, and policing, she shows, have produced these harms. In this enlightening book, Mayorga identifies small windows into abolitionist possibilities that create different types of relations, ones based on care and connection. This is a guide for anyone trying to understand urban inequality, but also more importantly, for how we might create a different world. Richard E. Ocejo is professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Racial capitalism, invisible but threaded throughout the world, shapes our lives. Focusing on the experiences of white, Black, and Latinx residents of Cincinnati, Sarah Mayorga argues that residents' interpretations of their circumstances, what she calls urban specters, are often partial recognitions of the exploitation and dehumanization produced by racial capitalism.  In Urban Specters: The Everyday Harms of Racial Capitalism (UNC Press, 2023), much scholarly work on racial capitalism has necessarily focused on historical, theoretical, and macro-level accounts. Mayorga takes these vital insights and applies them to two contemporary working-class neighborhoods, centering the lives of working-class and poor people. Using data from interviews with 117 residents, Mayorga maps how racial capitalism creates the everyday harms people know all too well. Chronic underdevelopment, private property, and policing, she shows, have produced these harms. In this enlightening book, Mayorga identifies small windows into abolitionist possibilities that create different types of relations, ones based on care and connection. This is a guide for anyone trying to understand urban inequality, but also more importantly, for how we might create a different world. Richard E. Ocejo is professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/latino-studies

Racial capitalism, invisible but threaded throughout the world, shapes our lives. Focusing on the experiences of white, Black, and Latinx residents of Cincinnati, Sarah Mayorga argues that residents' interpretations of their circumstances, what she calls urban specters, are often partial recognitions of the exploitation and dehumanization produced by racial capitalism.  In Urban Specters: The Everyday Harms of Racial Capitalism (UNC Press, 2023), much scholarly work on racial capitalism has necessarily focused on historical, theoretical, and macro-level accounts. Mayorga takes these vital insights and applies them to two contemporary working-class neighborhoods, centering the lives of working-class and poor people. Using data from interviews with 117 residents, Mayorga maps how racial capitalism creates the everyday harms people know all too well. Chronic underdevelopment, private property, and policing, she shows, have produced these harms. In this enlightening book, Mayorga identifies small windows into abolitionist possibilities that create different types of relations, ones based on care and connection. This is a guide for anyone trying to understand urban inequality, but also more importantly, for how we might create a different world. Richard E. Ocejo is professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Racial capitalism, invisible but threaded throughout the world, shapes our lives. Focusing on the experiences of white, Black, and Latinx residents of Cincinnati, Sarah Mayorga argues that residents' interpretations of their circumstances, what she calls urban specters, are often partial recognitions of the exploitation and dehumanization produced by racial capitalism.  In Urban Specters: The Everyday Harms of Racial Capitalism (UNC Press, 2023), much scholarly work on racial capitalism has necessarily focused on historical, theoretical, and macro-level accounts. Mayorga takes these vital insights and applies them to two contemporary working-class neighborhoods, centering the lives of working-class and poor people. Using data from interviews with 117 residents, Mayorga maps how racial capitalism creates the everyday harms people know all too well. Chronic underdevelopment, private property, and policing, she shows, have produced these harms. In this enlightening book, Mayorga identifies small windows into abolitionist possibilities that create different types of relations, ones based on care and connection. This is a guide for anyone trying to understand urban inequality, but also more importantly, for how we might create a different world. Richard E. Ocejo is professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Racial capitalism, invisible but threaded throughout the world, shapes our lives. Focusing on the experiences of white, Black, and Latinx residents of Cincinnati, Sarah Mayorga argues that residents' interpretations of their circumstances, what she calls urban specters, are often partial recognitions of the exploitation and dehumanization produced by racial capitalism.  In Urban Specters: The Everyday Harms of Racial Capitalism (UNC Press, 2023), much scholarly work on racial capitalism has necessarily focused on historical, theoretical, and macro-level accounts. Mayorga takes these vital insights and applies them to two contemporary working-class neighborhoods, centering the lives of working-class and poor people. Using data from interviews with 117 residents, Mayorga maps how racial capitalism creates the everyday harms people know all too well. Chronic underdevelopment, private property, and policing, she shows, have produced these harms. In this enlightening book, Mayorga identifies small windows into abolitionist possibilities that create different types of relations, ones based on care and connection. This is a guide for anyone trying to understand urban inequality, but also more importantly, for how we might create a different world. Richard E. Ocejo is professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Racial capitalism, invisible but threaded throughout the world, shapes our lives. Focusing on the experiences of white, Black, and Latinx residents of Cincinnati, Sarah Mayorga argues that residents' interpretations of their circumstances, what she calls urban specters, are often partial recognitions of the exploitation and dehumanization produced by racial capitalism.  In Urban Specters: The Everyday Harms of Racial Capitalism (UNC Press, 2023), much scholarly work on racial capitalism has necessarily focused on historical, theoretical, and macro-level accounts. Mayorga takes these vital insights and applies them to two contemporary working-class neighborhoods, centering the lives of working-class and poor people. Using data from interviews with 117 residents, Mayorga maps how racial capitalism creates the everyday harms people know all too well. Chronic underdevelopment, private property, and policing, she shows, have produced these harms. In this enlightening book, Mayorga identifies small windows into abolitionist possibilities that create different types of relations, ones based on care and connection. This is a guide for anyone trying to understand urban inequality, but also more importantly, for how we might create a different world. Richard E. Ocejo is professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Racial capitalism, invisible but threaded throughout the world, shapes our lives. Focusing on the experiences of white, Black, and Latinx residents of Cincinnati, Sarah Mayorga argues that residents' interpretations of their circumstances, what she calls urban specters, are often partial recognitions of the exploitation and dehumanization produced by racial capitalism.  In Urban Specters: The Everyday Harms of Racial Capitalism (UNC Press, 2023), much scholarly work on racial capitalism has necessarily focused on historical, theoretical, and macro-level accounts. Mayorga takes these vital insights and applies them to two contemporary working-class neighborhoods, centering the lives of working-class and poor people. Using data from interviews with 117 residents, Mayorga maps how racial capitalism creates the everyday harms people know all too well. Chronic underdevelopment, private property, and policing, she shows, have produced these harms. In this enlightening book, Mayorga identifies small windows into abolitionist possibilities that create different types of relations, ones based on care and connection. This is a guide for anyone trying to understand urban inequality, but also more importantly, for how we might create a different world. Richard E. Ocejo is professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Racial capitalism, invisible but threaded throughout the world, shapes our lives. Focusing on the experiences of white, Black, and Latinx residents of Cincinnati, Sarah Mayorga argues that residents' interpretations of their circumstances, what she calls urban specters, are often partial recognitions of the exploitation and dehumanization produced by racial capitalism.  In Urban Specters: The Everyday Harms of Racial Capitalism (UNC Press, 2023), much scholarly work on racial capitalism has necessarily focused on historical, theoretical, and macro-level accounts. Mayorga takes these vital insights and applies them to two contemporary working-class neighborhoods, centering the lives of working-class and poor people. Using data from interviews with 117 residents, Mayorga maps how racial capitalism creates the everyday harms people know all too well. Chronic underdevelopment, private property, and policing, she shows, have produced these harms. In this enlightening book, Mayorga identifies small windows into abolitionist possibilities that create different types of relations, ones based on care and connection. This is a guide for anyone trying to understand urban inequality, but also more importantly, for how we might create a different world. Richard E. Ocejo is professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Racial capitalism, invisible but threaded throughout the world, shapes our lives. Focusing on the experiences of white, Black, and Latinx residents of Cincinnati, Sarah Mayorga argues that residents' interpretations of their circumstances, what she calls urban specters, are often partial recognitions of the exploitation and dehumanization produced by racial capitalism.  In Urban Specters: The Everyday Harms of Racial Capitalism (UNC Press, 2023), much scholarly work on racial capitalism has necessarily focused on historical, theoretical, and macro-level accounts. Mayorga takes these vital insights and applies them to two contemporary working-class neighborhoods, centering the lives of working-class and poor people. Using data from interviews with 117 residents, Mayorga maps how racial capitalism creates the everyday harms people know all too well. Chronic underdevelopment, private property, and policing, she shows, have produced these harms. In this enlightening book, Mayorga identifies small windows into abolitionist possibilities that create different types of relations, ones based on care and connection. This is a guide for anyone trying to understand urban inequality, but also more importantly, for how we might create a different world. Richard E. Ocejo is professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Dispossession as Delivery: Land Occupation and Eviction in the Postapartheid City (Oxford University Press; 2022), Zachary Levenson explains why post-Apartheid South Africa continues to evict land occupations. Levenson shows that the government does this in the name of preserving the order they imagine is necessary to deliver housing to its citizens. Based upon a decade of participant observation in two land occupations in Cape Town, this book provides a novel, relational understanding about group formation and how collective actions interact with the state. Richard E. Ocejo is professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In Dispossession as Delivery: Land Occupation and Eviction in the Postapartheid City (Oxford University Press; 2022), Zachary Levenson explains why post-Apartheid South Africa continues to evict land occupations. Levenson shows that the government does this in the name of preserving the order they imagine is necessary to deliver housing to its citizens. Based upon a decade of participant observation in two land occupations in Cape Town, this book provides a novel, relational understanding about group formation and how collective actions interact with the state. Richard E. Ocejo is professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

In Dispossession as Delivery: Land Occupation and Eviction in the Postapartheid City (Oxford University Press; 2022), Zachary Levenson explains why post-Apartheid South Africa continues to evict land occupations. Levenson shows that the government does this in the name of preserving the order they imagine is necessary to deliver housing to its citizens. Based upon a decade of participant observation in two land occupations in Cape Town, this book provides a novel, relational understanding about group formation and how collective actions interact with the state. Richard E. Ocejo is professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

In Dispossession as Delivery: Land Occupation and Eviction in the Postapartheid City (Oxford University Press; 2022), Zachary Levenson explains why post-Apartheid South Africa continues to evict land occupations. Levenson shows that the government does this in the name of preserving the order they imagine is necessary to deliver housing to its citizens. Based upon a decade of participant observation in two land occupations in Cape Town, this book provides a novel, relational understanding about group formation and how collective actions interact with the state. Richard E. Ocejo is professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

In Dispossession as Delivery: Land Occupation and Eviction in the Postapartheid City (Oxford University Press; 2022), Zachary Levenson explains why post-Apartheid South Africa continues to evict land occupations. Levenson shows that the government does this in the name of preserving the order they imagine is necessary to deliver housing to its citizens. Based upon a decade of participant observation in two land occupations in Cape Town, this book provides a novel, relational understanding about group formation and how collective actions interact with the state. Richard E. Ocejo is professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Dispossession as Delivery: Land Occupation and Eviction in the Postapartheid City (Oxford University Press; 2022), Zachary Levenson explains why post-Apartheid South Africa continues to evict land occupations. Levenson shows that the government does this in the name of preserving the order they imagine is necessary to deliver housing to its citizens. Based upon a decade of participant observation in two land occupations in Cape Town, this book provides a novel, relational understanding about group formation and how collective actions interact with the state. Richard E. Ocejo is professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY).

Elizabeth Korver-Glenn's book Race Brokers: Housing Markets and Segregation in 21st Century Urban America (Oxford UP, 2021) examines how housing market professionals-including housing developers, real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and appraisers-construct 21st century urban housing markets in ways that contribute to or undermine racial segregation.  Drawing on extensive ethnographic and interview data collected in Houston, Texas, Race Brokers shows that housing market professionals play a key role in connecting people-or refusing to connect people-to housing resources and opportunities. They make these brokering decisions through reference to racist or anti-racist ideas. Typically, housing market professionals draw from racist ideas that rank-order people and neighborhoods according to their perceived economic and cultural housing market value, entwining racism with their housing market activities and interactions. Racialized housing market routines encourage this entwinement by naturalizing racism as a professional tool. Race Brokers tracks how professionals broker racism across the housing exchange process-from the home's construction, to real estate brokerage, mortgage lending, home appraisals, and the home sale closing. In doing so, it shows that professionals make housing exchange a racialized process that contributes to neighborhood inequality and racial segregation. However, in contrast to the racialized status-quo, a small number of housing market professionals draw on anti-racist ideas and strategies to extend equal opportunities to individuals and neighborhoods, de-naturalizing housing market racism. Race Brokers highlights the imperative to interrupt the racism that pervades housing market professionals' work, dismantle the racialized routines that underwrite such racism, and cultivate a truly fair housing market. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elizabeth Korver-Glenn's book Race Brokers: Housing Markets and Segregation in 21st Century Urban America (Oxford UP, 2021) examines how housing market professionals-including housing developers, real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and appraisers-construct 21st century urban housing markets in ways that contribute to or undermine racial segregation.  Drawing on extensive ethnographic and interview data collected in Houston, Texas, Race Brokers shows that housing market professionals play a key role in connecting people-or refusing to connect people-to housing resources and opportunities. They make these brokering decisions through reference to racist or anti-racist ideas. Typically, housing market professionals draw from racist ideas that rank-order people and neighborhoods according to their perceived economic and cultural housing market value, entwining racism with their housing market activities and interactions. Racialized housing market routines encourage this entwinement by naturalizing racism as a professional tool. Race Brokers tracks how professionals broker racism across the housing exchange process-from the home's construction, to real estate brokerage, mortgage lending, home appraisals, and the home sale closing. In doing so, it shows that professionals make housing exchange a racialized process that contributes to neighborhood inequality and racial segregation. However, in contrast to the racialized status-quo, a small number of housing market professionals draw on anti-racist ideas and strategies to extend equal opportunities to individuals and neighborhoods, de-naturalizing housing market racism. Race Brokers highlights the imperative to interrupt the racism that pervades housing market professionals' work, dismantle the racialized routines that underwrite such racism, and cultivate a truly fair housing market. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elizabeth Korver-Glenn's book Race Brokers: Housing Markets and Segregation in 21st Century Urban America (Oxford UP, 2021) examines how housing market professionals-including housing developers, real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and appraisers-construct 21st century urban housing markets in ways that contribute to or undermine racial segregation.  Drawing on extensive ethnographic and interview data collected in Houston, Texas, Race Brokers shows that housing market professionals play a key role in connecting people-or refusing to connect people-to housing resources and opportunities. They make these brokering decisions through reference to racist or anti-racist ideas. Typically, housing market professionals draw from racist ideas that rank-order people and neighborhoods according to their perceived economic and cultural housing market value, entwining racism with their housing market activities and interactions. Racialized housing market routines encourage this entwinement by naturalizing racism as a professional tool. Race Brokers tracks how professionals broker racism across the housing exchange process-from the home's construction, to real estate brokerage, mortgage lending, home appraisals, and the home sale closing. In doing so, it shows that professionals make housing exchange a racialized process that contributes to neighborhood inequality and racial segregation. However, in contrast to the racialized status-quo, a small number of housing market professionals draw on anti-racist ideas and strategies to extend equal opportunities to individuals and neighborhoods, de-naturalizing housing market racism. Race Brokers highlights the imperative to interrupt the racism that pervades housing market professionals' work, dismantle the racialized routines that underwrite such racism, and cultivate a truly fair housing market. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

Elizabeth Korver-Glenn's book Race Brokers: Housing Markets and Segregation in 21st Century Urban America (Oxford UP, 2021) examines how housing market professionals-including housing developers, real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and appraisers-construct 21st century urban housing markets in ways that contribute to or undermine racial segregation.  Drawing on extensive ethnographic and interview data collected in Houston, Texas, Race Brokers shows that housing market professionals play a key role in connecting people-or refusing to connect people-to housing resources and opportunities. They make these brokering decisions through reference to racist or anti-racist ideas. Typically, housing market professionals draw from racist ideas that rank-order people and neighborhoods according to their perceived economic and cultural housing market value, entwining racism with their housing market activities and interactions. Racialized housing market routines encourage this entwinement by naturalizing racism as a professional tool. Race Brokers tracks how professionals broker racism across the housing exchange process-from the home's construction, to real estate brokerage, mortgage lending, home appraisals, and the home sale closing. In doing so, it shows that professionals make housing exchange a racialized process that contributes to neighborhood inequality and racial segregation. However, in contrast to the racialized status-quo, a small number of housing market professionals draw on anti-racist ideas and strategies to extend equal opportunities to individuals and neighborhoods, de-naturalizing housing market racism. Race Brokers highlights the imperative to interrupt the racism that pervades housing market professionals' work, dismantle the racialized routines that underwrite such racism, and cultivate a truly fair housing market. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Elizabeth Korver-Glenn's book Race Brokers: Housing Markets and Segregation in 21st Century Urban America (Oxford UP, 2021) examines how housing market professionals-including housing developers, real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and appraisers-construct 21st century urban housing markets in ways that contribute to or undermine racial segregation.  Drawing on extensive ethnographic and interview data collected in Houston, Texas, Race Brokers shows that housing market professionals play a key role in connecting people-or refusing to connect people-to housing resources and opportunities. They make these brokering decisions through reference to racist or anti-racist ideas. Typically, housing market professionals draw from racist ideas that rank-order people and neighborhoods according to their perceived economic and cultural housing market value, entwining racism with their housing market activities and interactions. Racialized housing market routines encourage this entwinement by naturalizing racism as a professional tool. Race Brokers tracks how professionals broker racism across the housing exchange process-from the home's construction, to real estate brokerage, mortgage lending, home appraisals, and the home sale closing. In doing so, it shows that professionals make housing exchange a racialized process that contributes to neighborhood inequality and racial segregation. However, in contrast to the racialized status-quo, a small number of housing market professionals draw on anti-racist ideas and strategies to extend equal opportunities to individuals and neighborhoods, de-naturalizing housing market racism. Race Brokers highlights the imperative to interrupt the racism that pervades housing market professionals' work, dismantle the racialized routines that underwrite such racism, and cultivate a truly fair housing market. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Elizabeth Korver-Glenn's book Race Brokers: Housing Markets and Segregation in 21st Century Urban America (Oxford UP, 2021) examines how housing market professionals-including housing developers, real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and appraisers-construct 21st century urban housing markets in ways that contribute to or undermine racial segregation.  Drawing on extensive ethnographic and interview data collected in Houston, Texas, Race Brokers shows that housing market professionals play a key role in connecting people-or refusing to connect people-to housing resources and opportunities. They make these brokering decisions through reference to racist or anti-racist ideas. Typically, housing market professionals draw from racist ideas that rank-order people and neighborhoods according to their perceived economic and cultural housing market value, entwining racism with their housing market activities and interactions. Racialized housing market routines encourage this entwinement by naturalizing racism as a professional tool. Race Brokers tracks how professionals broker racism across the housing exchange process-from the home's construction, to real estate brokerage, mortgage lending, home appraisals, and the home sale closing. In doing so, it shows that professionals make housing exchange a racialized process that contributes to neighborhood inequality and racial segregation. However, in contrast to the racialized status-quo, a small number of housing market professionals draw on anti-racist ideas and strategies to extend equal opportunities to individuals and neighborhoods, de-naturalizing housing market racism. Race Brokers highlights the imperative to interrupt the racism that pervades housing market professionals' work, dismantle the racialized routines that underwrite such racism, and cultivate a truly fair housing market. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Elizabeth Korver-Glenn's book Race Brokers: Housing Markets and Segregation in 21st Century Urban America (Oxford UP, 2021) examines how housing market professionals-including housing developers, real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and appraisers-construct 21st century urban housing markets in ways that contribute to or undermine racial segregation.  Drawing on extensive ethnographic and interview data collected in Houston, Texas, Race Brokers shows that housing market professionals play a key role in connecting people-or refusing to connect people-to housing resources and opportunities. They make these brokering decisions through reference to racist or anti-racist ideas. Typically, housing market professionals draw from racist ideas that rank-order people and neighborhoods according to their perceived economic and cultural housing market value, entwining racism with their housing market activities and interactions. Racialized housing market routines encourage this entwinement by naturalizing racism as a professional tool. Race Brokers tracks how professionals broker racism across the housing exchange process-from the home's construction, to real estate brokerage, mortgage lending, home appraisals, and the home sale closing. In doing so, it shows that professionals make housing exchange a racialized process that contributes to neighborhood inequality and racial segregation. However, in contrast to the racialized status-quo, a small number of housing market professionals draw on anti-racist ideas and strategies to extend equal opportunities to individuals and neighborhoods, de-naturalizing housing market racism. Race Brokers highlights the imperative to interrupt the racism that pervades housing market professionals' work, dismantle the racialized routines that underwrite such racism, and cultivate a truly fair housing market. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-south

Elizabeth Korver-Glenn's book Race Brokers: Housing Markets and Segregation in 21st Century Urban America (Oxford UP, 2021) examines how housing market professionals-including housing developers, real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and appraisers-construct 21st century urban housing markets in ways that contribute to or undermine racial segregation.  Drawing on extensive ethnographic and interview data collected in Houston, Texas, Race Brokers shows that housing market professionals play a key role in connecting people-or refusing to connect people-to housing resources and opportunities. They make these brokering decisions through reference to racist or anti-racist ideas. Typically, housing market professionals draw from racist ideas that rank-order people and neighborhoods according to their perceived economic and cultural housing market value, entwining racism with their housing market activities and interactions. Racialized housing market routines encourage this entwinement by naturalizing racism as a professional tool. Race Brokers tracks how professionals broker racism across the housing exchange process-from the home's construction, to real estate brokerage, mortgage lending, home appraisals, and the home sale closing. In doing so, it shows that professionals make housing exchange a racialized process that contributes to neighborhood inequality and racial segregation. However, in contrast to the racialized status-quo, a small number of housing market professionals draw on anti-racist ideas and strategies to extend equal opportunities to individuals and neighborhoods, de-naturalizing housing market racism. Race Brokers highlights the imperative to interrupt the racism that pervades housing market professionals' work, dismantle the racialized routines that underwrite such racism, and cultivate a truly fair housing market. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY).

Elizabeth Korver-Glenn's book Race Brokers: Housing Markets and Segregation in 21st Century Urban America (Oxford UP, 2021) examines how housing market professionals-including housing developers, real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and appraisers-construct 21st century urban housing markets in ways that contribute to or undermine racial segregation.  Drawing on extensive ethnographic and interview data collected in Houston, Texas, Race Brokers shows that housing market professionals play a key role in connecting people-or refusing to connect people-to housing resources and opportunities. They make these brokering decisions through reference to racist or anti-racist ideas. Typically, housing market professionals draw from racist ideas that rank-order people and neighborhoods according to their perceived economic and cultural housing market value, entwining racism with their housing market activities and interactions. Racialized housing market routines encourage this entwinement by naturalizing racism as a professional tool. Race Brokers tracks how professionals broker racism across the housing exchange process-from the home's construction, to real estate brokerage, mortgage lending, home appraisals, and the home sale closing. In doing so, it shows that professionals make housing exchange a racialized process that contributes to neighborhood inequality and racial segregation. However, in contrast to the racialized status-quo, a small number of housing market professionals draw on anti-racist ideas and strategies to extend equal opportunities to individuals and neighborhoods, de-naturalizing housing market racism. Race Brokers highlights the imperative to interrupt the racism that pervades housing market professionals' work, dismantle the racialized routines that underwrite such racism, and cultivate a truly fair housing market. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Elizabeth Korver-Glenn's book Race Brokers: Housing Markets and Segregation in 21st Century Urban America (Oxford UP, 2021) examines how housing market professionals-including housing developers, real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and appraisers-construct 21st century urban housing markets in ways that contribute to or undermine racial segregation.  Drawing on extensive ethnographic and interview data collected in Houston, Texas, Race Brokers shows that housing market professionals play a key role in connecting people-or refusing to connect people-to housing resources and opportunities. They make these brokering decisions through reference to racist or anti-racist ideas. Typically, housing market professionals draw from racist ideas that rank-order people and neighborhoods according to their perceived economic and cultural housing market value, entwining racism with their housing market activities and interactions. Racialized housing market routines encourage this entwinement by naturalizing racism as a professional tool. Race Brokers tracks how professionals broker racism across the housing exchange process-from the home's construction, to real estate brokerage, mortgage lending, home appraisals, and the home sale closing. In doing so, it shows that professionals make housing exchange a racialized process that contributes to neighborhood inequality and racial segregation. However, in contrast to the racialized status-quo, a small number of housing market professionals draw on anti-racist ideas and strategies to extend equal opportunities to individuals and neighborhoods, de-naturalizing housing market racism. Race Brokers highlights the imperative to interrupt the racism that pervades housing market professionals' work, dismantle the racialized routines that underwrite such racism, and cultivate a truly fair housing market. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

As projects like Manhattan's High Line, Chicago's 606, China's eco-cities, and Ethiopia's tree-planting efforts show, cities around the world are devoting serious resources to urban greening. Formerly neglected urban spaces and new high-end developments draw huge crowds thanks to the considerable efforts of city governments. But why are greening projects so widely taken up, and what good do they do? In How Green Became Good: Urbanized Nature and the Making of Cities and Citizens (U Chicago Press, 2021), Hillary Angelo uncovers the origins and meanings of the enduring appeal of urban green space, showing that city planners have long thought that creating green spaces would lead to social improvement. Turning to Germany's Ruhr Valley (a region that, despite its ample open space, was "greened" with the addition of official parks and gardens), Angelo shows that greening is as much a social process as a physical one. She examines three moments in the Ruhr Valley's urban history that inspired the creation of new green spaces: industrialization in the late nineteenth century, postwar democratic ideals of the 1960s, and industrial decline and economic renewal in the early 1990s. Across these distinct historical moments, Angelo shows that the impulse to bring nature into urban life has persistently arisen as a response to a host of social changes, and reveals an enduring conviction that green space will transform us into ideal inhabitants of ideal cities. Ultimately, however, she finds that the creation of urban green space is more about how we imagine social life than about the good it imparts. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As projects like Manhattan's High Line, Chicago's 606, China's eco-cities, and Ethiopia's tree-planting efforts show, cities around the world are devoting serious resources to urban greening. Formerly neglected urban spaces and new high-end developments draw huge crowds thanks to the considerable efforts of city governments. But why are greening projects so widely taken up, and what good do they do? In How Green Became Good: Urbanized Nature and the Making of Cities and Citizens (U Chicago Press, 2021), Hillary Angelo uncovers the origins and meanings of the enduring appeal of urban green space, showing that city planners have long thought that creating green spaces would lead to social improvement. Turning to Germany's Ruhr Valley (a region that, despite its ample open space, was "greened" with the addition of official parks and gardens), Angelo shows that greening is as much a social process as a physical one. She examines three moments in the Ruhr Valley's urban history that inspired the creation of new green spaces: industrialization in the late nineteenth century, postwar democratic ideals of the 1960s, and industrial decline and economic renewal in the early 1990s. Across these distinct historical moments, Angelo shows that the impulse to bring nature into urban life has persistently arisen as a response to a host of social changes, and reveals an enduring conviction that green space will transform us into ideal inhabitants of ideal cities. Ultimately, however, she finds that the creation of urban green space is more about how we imagine social life than about the good it imparts. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

As projects like Manhattan's High Line, Chicago's 606, China's eco-cities, and Ethiopia's tree-planting efforts show, cities around the world are devoting serious resources to urban greening. Formerly neglected urban spaces and new high-end developments draw huge crowds thanks to the considerable efforts of city governments. But why are greening projects so widely taken up, and what good do they do? In How Green Became Good: Urbanized Nature and the Making of Cities and Citizens (U Chicago Press, 2021), Hillary Angelo uncovers the origins and meanings of the enduring appeal of urban green space, showing that city planners have long thought that creating green spaces would lead to social improvement. Turning to Germany's Ruhr Valley (a region that, despite its ample open space, was "greened" with the addition of official parks and gardens), Angelo shows that greening is as much a social process as a physical one. She examines three moments in the Ruhr Valley's urban history that inspired the creation of new green spaces: industrialization in the late nineteenth century, postwar democratic ideals of the 1960s, and industrial decline and economic renewal in the early 1990s. Across these distinct historical moments, Angelo shows that the impulse to bring nature into urban life has persistently arisen as a response to a host of social changes, and reveals an enduring conviction that green space will transform us into ideal inhabitants of ideal cities. Ultimately, however, she finds that the creation of urban green space is more about how we imagine social life than about the good it imparts. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

As projects like Manhattan's High Line, Chicago's 606, China's eco-cities, and Ethiopia's tree-planting efforts show, cities around the world are devoting serious resources to urban greening. Formerly neglected urban spaces and new high-end developments draw huge crowds thanks to the considerable efforts of city governments. But why are greening projects so widely taken up, and what good do they do? In How Green Became Good: Urbanized Nature and the Making of Cities and Citizens (U Chicago Press, 2021), Hillary Angelo uncovers the origins and meanings of the enduring appeal of urban green space, showing that city planners have long thought that creating green spaces would lead to social improvement. Turning to Germany's Ruhr Valley (a region that, despite its ample open space, was "greened" with the addition of official parks and gardens), Angelo shows that greening is as much a social process as a physical one. She examines three moments in the Ruhr Valley's urban history that inspired the creation of new green spaces: industrialization in the late nineteenth century, postwar democratic ideals of the 1960s, and industrial decline and economic renewal in the early 1990s. Across these distinct historical moments, Angelo shows that the impulse to bring nature into urban life has persistently arisen as a response to a host of social changes, and reveals an enduring conviction that green space will transform us into ideal inhabitants of ideal cities. Ultimately, however, she finds that the creation of urban green space is more about how we imagine social life than about the good it imparts. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

As projects like Manhattan's High Line, Chicago's 606, China's eco-cities, and Ethiopia's tree-planting efforts show, cities around the world are devoting serious resources to urban greening. Formerly neglected urban spaces and new high-end developments draw huge crowds thanks to the considerable efforts of city governments. But why are greening projects so widely taken up, and what good do they do? In How Green Became Good: Urbanized Nature and the Making of Cities and Citizens (U Chicago Press, 2021), Hillary Angelo uncovers the origins and meanings of the enduring appeal of urban green space, showing that city planners have long thought that creating green spaces would lead to social improvement. Turning to Germany's Ruhr Valley (a region that, despite its ample open space, was "greened" with the addition of official parks and gardens), Angelo shows that greening is as much a social process as a physical one. She examines three moments in the Ruhr Valley's urban history that inspired the creation of new green spaces: industrialization in the late nineteenth century, postwar democratic ideals of the 1960s, and industrial decline and economic renewal in the early 1990s. Across these distinct historical moments, Angelo shows that the impulse to bring nature into urban life has persistently arisen as a response to a host of social changes, and reveals an enduring conviction that green space will transform us into ideal inhabitants of ideal cities. Ultimately, however, she finds that the creation of urban green space is more about how we imagine social life than about the good it imparts. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

As projects like Manhattan's High Line, Chicago's 606, China's eco-cities, and Ethiopia's tree-planting efforts show, cities around the world are devoting serious resources to urban greening. Formerly neglected urban spaces and new high-end developments draw huge crowds thanks to the considerable efforts of city governments. But why are greening projects so widely taken up, and what good do they do? In How Green Became Good: Urbanized Nature and the Making of Cities and Citizens (U Chicago Press, 2021), Hillary Angelo uncovers the origins and meanings of the enduring appeal of urban green space, showing that city planners have long thought that creating green spaces would lead to social improvement. Turning to Germany's Ruhr Valley (a region that, despite its ample open space, was "greened" with the addition of official parks and gardens), Angelo shows that greening is as much a social process as a physical one. She examines three moments in the Ruhr Valley's urban history that inspired the creation of new green spaces: industrialization in the late nineteenth century, postwar democratic ideals of the 1960s, and industrial decline and economic renewal in the early 1990s. Across these distinct historical moments, Angelo shows that the impulse to bring nature into urban life has persistently arisen as a response to a host of social changes, and reveals an enduring conviction that green space will transform us into ideal inhabitants of ideal cities. Ultimately, however, she finds that the creation of urban green space is more about how we imagine social life than about the good it imparts. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

As projects like Manhattan's High Line, Chicago's 606, China's eco-cities, and Ethiopia's tree-planting efforts show, cities around the world are devoting serious resources to urban greening. Formerly neglected urban spaces and new high-end developments draw huge crowds thanks to the considerable efforts of city governments. But why are greening projects so widely taken up, and what good do they do? In How Green Became Good: Urbanized Nature and the Making of Cities and Citizens (U Chicago Press, 2021), Hillary Angelo uncovers the origins and meanings of the enduring appeal of urban green space, showing that city planners have long thought that creating green spaces would lead to social improvement. Turning to Germany's Ruhr Valley (a region that, despite its ample open space, was "greened" with the addition of official parks and gardens), Angelo shows that greening is as much a social process as a physical one. She examines three moments in the Ruhr Valley's urban history that inspired the creation of new green spaces: industrialization in the late nineteenth century, postwar democratic ideals of the 1960s, and industrial decline and economic renewal in the early 1990s. Across these distinct historical moments, Angelo shows that the impulse to bring nature into urban life has persistently arisen as a response to a host of social changes, and reveals an enduring conviction that green space will transform us into ideal inhabitants of ideal cities. Ultimately, however, she finds that the creation of urban green space is more about how we imagine social life than about the good it imparts. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies

With such high levels of residential segregation along racial lines in the United States, gentrifying neighborhoods present fascinating opportunities to examine places with varying levels of integration, and how people living in them navigate the thorny politics of race. Among the many conflicts revolving around race under gentrification is crime and its relationship with the displacement and marginalization of a neighborhood's existing low-income minority groups. Contributing to this conversation is sociologist Jan Doering, whose new book Us versus Them: Race, Crime, and Gentrification in Chicago Neighborhoods (Oxford University Press, 2020) examines the strategic practices of two groups in that city's Rogers Park and Uptown neighborhoods: “public safety” advocates, or people who were very concerned with crime and active in a variety of local initiatives to address it; and “social justice” advocates, or people who were more concerned with resisting gentrification and keeping their neighborhood racially and socioeconomically diverse. In documenting their efforts and clashes through three years of fieldwork, Doering focuses on two forms of racial claims-making each camp of residents uses to make its case: racial challenges, or charges of racially problematic behavior, and racial neutralizations, or any defensive or reparative responses to racial failings. Revealing links between how anticrime initiatives can amplify gentrification and contribute to marginalization through the invocation of race as they negotiate the politics of crime and gentrification, the book provides a highly nuanced, and quite timely, analysis of everyday battles over racial meanings with great resonance for today's political climate. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He is the author of Masters of Craft: Old Jobs in the New Urban Economy (Princeton University Press, 2017), Upscaling Downtown: From Bowery Saloons to Cocktail Bars in New York City (Princeton University Press, 2014), and editor of Urban Ethnography: Legacies and Challenges (Emerald, 2019) and Ethnography and the City: Readings on Doing Urban Fieldwork (Routledge, 2012). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we hear about the “future of work” today we tend to think about different forms of automation and artificial intelligence—technological innovations that will make some jobs easier and others obsolete while (hopefully) creating new ones we cannot yet foresee, and never could have. But perhaps this future isn't so incomprehensible. Perhaps it's here already, right in front of our faces, at the largest employer in the world. In their new book, Working for Respect: Community and Conflict at Walmart (Columbia University Press, 2018) sociologists Adam Reich and Peter Bearman analyze what it means to work at the world's largest retailer—and the largest provider of low-wage jobs. Through stories from Walmart employees and observations from stores around the country, they provide much insight into their working conditions and the relationship they have with their surrounding communities. But a truly novel approach and broad set of additional methods make the book shine. Inspired by the Freedom Summer of 1964, in 2014 (the 50th anniversary of that pivotal event) Reich and Bearman launched the “Summer of Respect,” for which they hired a team of college students to work on membership registration for OUR Walmart, a voluntary association of current and former Walmart associates. The students fanned out in teams to communities around the United States, and in addition to organizing and gathering data on Walmart workers, Reich and Bearman also examined them upon their return to determine the influence that social justice engagement has on people. Working for Respect, then, goes far beyond the typical “bad jobs” treatment to provide an impressive look at the important role of community in social change. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He is the author of Masters of Craft: Old Jobs in the New Urban Economy (Princeton University Press, 2017), about the transformation of low-status occupations into cool, cultural taste-making jobs (cocktail bartenders, craft distillers, upscale men's barbers, and whole animal butchers), and of Upscaling Downtown: From Bowery Saloons to Cocktail Bars in New York City (Princeton University Press, 2014), about growth policies, nightlife, and conflict in gentrified neighborhoods. His work has appeared in such journals as City & Community, Poetics, Ethnography, and the European Journal of Cultural Studies. He is also the editor of Ethnography and the City: Readings on Doing Urban Fieldwork (Routledge, 2012), a co-Book Editor at City & Community, and serves on the editorial boards of the journals Metropolitics, Work and Occupations, and the Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography.

Consumers today have a lot of choices. Whether in stores or online, people are inundated by an abundance of options for what to buy. At the same time, the products we consume seem to have more and more ingredients, additives, and chemicals in them that put our health at risk, and even their packaging could be harmful to us. How do consumers make sense of the choices they have to make to reduce their own and their family's exposure to everyday toxics? In her engaging and insightful new book, Better Safe Than Sorry: How Consumers Navigate Exposure to Everyday Toxics (University of California Press, 2018), sociologist Norah MacKendrick shows readers how today's regulatory environment in the United States came about, how so much of what we consume remains unregulated, and how environmental health groups, food retail stores, and consumers have adjusted to these realities. In an age of deregulation, when individuals are forced to take on an increasing amount of risk with decreasing support from societal institutions, MacKendrick argues that many consumers today are practicing what she calls “precautionary consumption,” or a pattern of “green” or non-toxic shopping to try to ward off the harms of conventional modern products. The burden of such an intensive, resource-consuming approach to shopping, however, falls disproportionately on women, who remain charged with the responsibility of caring for the household (shopping, cooking, cleaning), and especially mothers, who still do the lion's share of child raising. Furthermore, MacKendrick questions the ability of precautionary consumption to truly achieve environmental justice and equitable forms of widespread regulation, so that the burden for preventing exposure to everyday toxics doesn't fall on the individual, and especially not on the groups bearing excessive responsibility to do so (women, mothers) or receiving a disproportionate amount of the harm (the poor). Examining everyday toxics from a variety of angles, MacKendrick's book is an impressive analysis of how many of us shop today, why we do so, and what we can do to achieve greater equality. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He is the author of Masters of Craft: Old Jobs in the New Urban Economy (Princeton University Press, 2017), about the transformation of low-status occupations into cool, cultural taste-making jobs (cocktail bartenders, craft distillers, upscale men's barbers, and whole animal butchers), and of Upscaling Downtown: From Bowery Saloons to Cocktail Bars in New York City (Princeton University Press, 2014), about growth policies, nightlife, and conflict in gentrified neighborhoods. His work has appeared in such journals as City & Community, Poetics, Ethnography, and the European Journal of Cultural Studies. He is also the editor of Ethnography and the City: Readings on Doing Urban Fieldwork (Routledge, 2012), a co-Book Editor at City & Community, and serves on the editorial boards of the journals Metropolitics, Work and Occupations, and the Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The built environment around us seems almost natural, as in beyond our control to alter or shape. Indeed, we have reached a point in history when cities—the largest and most complex of our settlements—are more scientifically planned, managed, and controlled than ever, leaving relatively little room for citizen input in their design or look, or in the activities allowed in them. But when we look closely we see many examples of interventions that everyday citizens make to their surroundings, ranging from graffiti and skateboarding to musical and theatrical performances and protests in public space. But a recent set of these endeavors found in today's built environment strives for something besides artistic or political expression. In his well-researched, eye-opening new book, The Help-Yourself City: Legitimacy and Inequality in DIY Urbanism (Oxford University Press, 2018), sociologist Gordon Douglas takes readers onto the streets and public spaces of cities around the world to reveal the projects and practitioners of “DIY urban design,” a specific type of informal interventions in urban public space that emphasizes functionality and civic-mindedness in physical alternations and additions. Through such projects as building and installing benches in places lacking seating and posting signage to both encourage and guide walking in neighborhoods, Douglas's DIY urban designers, who are relatively privileged socially, aim to improve their cities in ways they feel local governments should but don't or can't, and in ways that are beneficial and helpful for everyone. The book shines when he explores the implications for such practices for revealing and exacerbating inequality in today's segregated city. Ultimately, as these practices continue, and as city governments and planning agencies borrow and implement many of the ideas and projects of DIY urban design, the book encourages a consideration of the real issues of inclusion and exclusion that they signify for the sake of achieving greater levels of equality in public space. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He is the author of Masters of Craft: Old Jobs in the New Urban Economy (Princeton University Press, 2017), about the transformation of low-status occupations into cool, cultural taste-making jobs (cocktail bartenders, craft distillers, upscale men's barbers, and whole animal butchers), and of Upscaling Downtown: From Bowery Saloons to Cocktail Bars in New York City (Princeton University Press, 2014), about growth policies, nightlife, and conflict in gentrified neighborhoods. His work has appeared in such journals as City & Community, Poetics, Ethnography, and the European Journal of Cultural Studies. He is also the editor of Ethnography and the City: Readings on Doing Urban Fieldwork (Routledge, 2012), a co-Book Editor at City & Community, and serves on the editorial boards of the journals Metropolitics, Work and Occupations, and the Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the rise of the #MeToo movement following dozens of high-profile cases of sexual harassment and assault by professional men against women colleagues, gender equality has become a popular topic of discussion and a policy goal. Among the many topics under consideration is the persistent gender wage gap and how to close it. Most of the conversation of equal pay between men and women revolves around such issues as family leave policies, the undervaluing of feminine jobs, and gendered approaches to salary negotiation, among others. And almost all of the discussion concerns adult women during their peak earning years. But are there other factors that we must consider to fully understand why women continue to earn less than men despite earning bachelors and even some graduate degrees at higher rates? Does an explanation perhaps reside before women even go to college? In her timely and intriguing book, The Cost of Being a Girl: Working Teens and the Origins of the Gender Wage Gap (Temple University Press, 2017), sociologist Yasemin Besen-Cassino considers the first jobs that women have, as teenagers, and how their work conditions and treatment by employers help shape their self-understandings as workers and approach to being a worker. Focusing on people who work as babysitters and in retail, she shows how girls learn to accept such inequities as having to work extra hours for no pay and to have their work regarded as naturally “caring,” and therefore not something worth compensating. Through an innovative mixed-methods approach, Besen-Cassino goes a long way toward revealing how the seeds for the gender wage gap get sown.  Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He is the author of Masters of Craft: Old Jobs in the New Urban Economy (Princeton University Press, 2017), about the transformation of low-status occupations into cool, cultural taste-making jobs (cocktail bartenders, craft distillers, upscale men's barbers, and whole animal butchers), and of Upscaling Downtown: From Bowery Saloons to Cocktail Bars in New York City (Princeton University Press, 2014), about growth policies, nightlife, and conflict in gentrified neighborhoods. His work has appeared in such journals as City & Community, Poetics, Ethnography, and the European Journal of Cultural Studies. He is also the editor of Ethnography and the City: Readings on Doing Urban Fieldwork (Routledge, 2012), a co-Book Editor at City & Community, and serves on the editorial boards of the journals Metropolitics, Work and Occupations, and the Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Public scholarship takes many forms, from op-eds to activism to blog posts. In their new book, Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Family (Columbia University Press, 2017), Associate Professor Bruce Haynes and freelance writer, developmental editor, and educator Syma Solovitch (both co-authors and a married couple) use a “sociological memoir” to show a variety of social science concepts in the fields of urban studies, social class, and race. The subject is Haynes's family, whose members were at the heart of several key events, periods, and organizations in African American life in the twentieth century. His grandfather was a leading scholar of the Great Migration and founded the National Urban League, while his grandmother was a noted children's book author of the Harlem Renaissance. The couple became members of the new black Harlem. His parents, who made great sacrifices, such as the gradual deterioration of their house, to send their three sons to private school, resembled the tenuous position African Americans held in the middle class. And Haynes and his brothers came of age in an equally exciting and dangerous period in New York City's history: the turbulence of the 60s, decline of the 70s, and devastation of the 80s. Interweaving a variety of sociological concepts and historical examinations with intimate portraits of this singular family, Down the Up Staircase takes readers on an entertaining and provocative tour of twentieth-century urban America. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He is the author of Masters of Craft: Old Jobs in the New Urban Economy (Princeton University Press, 2017), about the transformation of low-status occupations into cool, cultural taste-making jobs (cocktail bartenders, craft distillers, upscale mens barbers, and whole animal butchers), and of Upscaling Downtown: From Bowery Saloons to Cocktail Bars in New York City (Princeton University Press, 2014), about growth policies, nightlife, and conflict in gentrified neighborhoods. His work has appeared in such journals as City & Community, Poetics, Ethnography, and the European Journal of Cultural Studies. He is also the editor of Ethnography and the City: Readings on Doing Urban Fieldwork (Routledge; 2012) and serves on the editorial boards of the journals Metropolitics, Work and Occupations, and the Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography.

Urban sociologists typically use a few grand narratives to explain the path of the American city through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. These include industrialization, mass immigration, the “Great Migration,” deindustrialization, suburbanization (or “white flight”), gentrification, and postindustrial/neoliberal growth policies, among others. In Race and the Politics of Deception: The Making of an American City (New York University Press, 2017) , Associate Professor Christopher Mele shows readers the more granular details of this history. Focusing on growth, decline, and revitalization of Chester, a small city in Pennsylvania near Philadelphia, Mele specifically reveals how race, or an ideology and discourse of racial blindness, have been used as a strategy of exclusion since World War I. Proceeding chronologically, the book examines how the politics of growth in Chester have revolved on ideas of race, from housing segregation to civil rights clashes. It culminates with the present-day realities of life in Chester, in which the city boasts a casino, a soccer stadium, and a redeveloped waterfront, mainly for visitors, while its majority population of low-income minorities get labeled as either compliant participants in (e.g. as low-wage workers) or obstructions to (e.g. as criminals or deviants) this image and growth. The imagery ignores the structural conditions that create their poverty. Mele provides a new, fascinating lens for looking at the relationship between race and space in the city. Richard E. Ocejo is associate professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He is the author of Masters of Craft: Old Jobs in the New Urban Economy (Princeton University Press, 2017), about the transformation of low-status occupations into cool, cultural taste-making jobs (cocktail bartenders, craft distillers, upscale men's barbers, and whole animal butchers), and of Upscaling Downtown: From Bowery Saloons to Cocktail Bars in New York City (Princeton University Press, 2014), about growth policies, nightlife, and conflict in gentrified neighborhoods. His work has appeared in such journals as City & Community, Poetics, Ethnography, and the European Journal of Cultural Studies. He is also the editor of Ethnography and the City: Readings on Doing Urban Fieldwork (Routledge; 2012) and serves on the editorial boards of the journals Metropolitics, Work and Occupations, and the Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readers will want to grab a cocktail and charcuterie board when they sit down to read Richard E. Ocejo‘s new book, Masters of Craft: Old Jobs in the New Urban Economy (Princeton University Press, 2017). Ocejo explores the performance of culture through food and drink choices as well as the rejection of mass production in craft jobs. Working in the field, Ocejo provides readers with a glimpse into the working lives of bartenders, distillery workers, butchers and barbers. Highly educated and seeking meaning in their work, more young men are moving into these traditional jobs that have turned high end. Oceojo paints a sociological landscape of work and meaning in these jobs as well as understanding around “good jobs” in the new economy. Through technical skills as well as cultural understanding, we see how these workers not only support each other in each niche community, but also help teach the customers about these ways of life. Questioning our ideas about social mobility and what is a “good job,” Ocejo provides insight into stratification of tastes as well as the gentrification of jobs. This book would be useful in an upper level undergraduate or even graduate course in Work and Occupations, and will be enjoyed by sociologist, economists, and cocktail drinkers alike. Sarah E. Patterson is a Family Demographer and is ABD at Penn State. You can follow and tweet her at @spattersearch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices