Author Archives: Community & Urban Sociology

Message From the Communications Team (Summer 2021)

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2021 Summer, Vol 34, No 2

This issue of the CUSS Newsletter begins with a piece by team member Steven Schmidt on informal housing    arrangements in Los Angeles. In addition, this issue includes a discussion with 2020 Park Award Winners Scott Frickel and James Elliott on their book Sites Unseen, as well as an interview with Addams award winner Jackelyn Hwang. Also, new City & Community book editors Sofya Aptekar and Ervin Kosta share with us their plans for a more inclusive and global coverage of new books.

As always, newsletter articles are posted on Comurb.org, in addition to being distributed via the listserve. The team also shares links to material via Twitter (@ComUrbASA), and Facebook (CUSS). We are always looking for essays or op-ed pieces that promote community and urban sociology. Pieces can cover new research, teaching and pedagogy, or community activism. Please contact any of us if you are interested.

· Albert Fu <afu@kutztown.edu>

· Leigh-Anna Hidalgo <lhidalgo@binghamton.edu>

· Kyle Galindez <kgalinde@ucsc.edu>

· Lora Phillips <lora.phillips@asu.edu>

· Steven Schmidt <stvnschmidt@gmail.com>

Chair’s Message (Summer 2021)

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Derek Hyra
CUSS Newsletter, 2021 Summer, Vol 34, No 2

We are in a much different place than we were earlier this year. Vaccination rates are up, deaths are down, and things are starting to open back up. This has been an extremely difficult year, but I am feeling optimistic and looking forward to the future. We have much collective work to do and lots to celebrate as a section.

In the immediate future, we have an amazing set of section sessions coming up at our ASA Annual Meeting in August. Please virtually join and participate in our four CUSS paper sessions, as we tackle some of the most pressing theoretical and empirical community and urban challenges. Here’s the schedule for our sessions and business meeting.

Don’t miss the CUSS business meeting on Monday, August 9th from 2:30 pm to 3:55 pm (EDT). We will review the state of our section (which is resilient and strong) and celebrate the accomplishments of our members and the broader urban sociology community. Please come to the meeting to help congratulate this year’s set of award winners!

As I noted, our section is strong. As of July 7, we have over 600 members and are standing on solid financial ground as a section going forward. This year we elected a great set of leaders for the various committees and posts and altered our bylaws to reflect our steadfast commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in all facets of our section. I am proud of our continued work to alleviate and minimize injustices in our society and section.

I wish all of you a great rest of the summer and look forward to seeing many of you in August.

2021 CUSS Awards

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1. CUSS Publicly Engaged Scholar Award 2021

Co-winners:

George Greenidge, Georgia State University

Stefanie A. DeLuca, Johns Hopkins University

2. CUSS Graduate Student Paper Award 2021

Ángel Mendiola Ross, University of California, Berkeley, “Outercity Policing: Drivers of Police Spending in a Changing Metropolis.”

3. CUSS Book Award 2021

Marco Garrido, University of Chicago, The Patchwork City: Class, Space, and Politics in Metro Manila (University of Chicago Press 2019)

4. CUSS Jane Addams Article Award 2021

Co-winners:

Bell, Monica C., Yale University, “Located Institutions: Neighborhood Frames, Residential Preferences, and the Case of Policing.” American Journal of Sociology 125, no. 4 (2020): 917-973.

Pacewicz, Josh (Brown University) and Robinson, John (Washington University, St. Louis), “Pocketbook Policing: How Race Shapes Municipal Reliance on Punitive Fines and Fees in the Chicago Suburbs. Socio-Economic Review (2020).

5. CUSS Robert and Helen Lynd Award for Lifetime Achievement 2021

Elijah Anderson, Yale University

Special Issue on Homelessness

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The Dynamics of Homelessness: Research and Policy

Edited by Barrett A. Lee, Marybeth Shinn, and Dennis P. Culhane

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (693; January 2021)

Contrary to popular perceptions of homelessness as static and enduring, this volume of The ANNALS provides a more nuanced view. Its 16 core articles employ innovative research designs and multiple types of over-time data to 1) analyze changes in homeless populations and the people experiencing homelessness; 2) examine factors leading to episodes of homelessness; and 3) evaluate interventions intended to end homelessness and to help individuals and families thrive. Contributors to the volume illuminate the dynamic nature of the phenomenon, both at the micro level (where people enter, pass through, and exit homelessness on different trajectories) and at the macro level (where shifting structural forces and public policies influence the scale of the problem and whom it affects).

Editors Barry Lee, Beth Shinn, and Dennis Culhane have assembled a set of contemporary studies that are informed by diverse disciplinary perspectives and methodological approaches. Taken together, these studies advance social scientific understanding of homelessness while suggesting how the problem might be more effectively addressed. Thus, they should be of interest to policy makers and practitioners as well as scholars.

For additional details about the volume, please see the attached PDF. The volume’s contents can also be downloaded for free by clicking on its title above. This period of open access runs from May 15 through June 30, 2021.

Understanding Housing Informality in Los Angeles

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by Steven Schmidt, University of California Irvine
CUSS Newsletter, 2021 Summer, Vol 34, No 2

During a warm summer evening in Los Angeles, I interviewed Mabel on the sideline of her son’s baseball practice. A single mom from Guatemala, Mabel lives with her three kids in an apartment bedroom that she rents under the table from an older woman. Mabel sees the rented room as a stepping stone to owning a home: “I want to grow, to eventually have my own house. But for now with my situation, I have to wait a little longer to be able to do it.”[i] Later that year, I met Lisa, a middle-income white woman who rents a home about five minutes away from Mabel. Although her lease does not allow sublets, Lisa usually rents out one of her three bedrooms. I asked what she looks for in a roommate: “We don’t cook animal products, we eat organic, so a health-conscious person. We didn’t want more kids, that was just too much.” Sharing a home is relatively common in Los Angeles, where an estimated 47% of families live doubled-up, or with another adult who is not a romantic partner (Bretz, 2017). While many doubled-up renters live in multigenerational homes, Mabel and Lisa live with non-family members. How do renters find opportunities to rent spaces in other households, and how do families decide who they will allow to live with them?

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New Books (Summer 2021)

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Castañeda, Ernesto. 2021. Building Walls: Excluding Latin People in the United States. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498585651/Building-Walls-Excluding-Latin-People-in-the-United-States

Gonzales, Teresa Irene. 2021. Building a Better Chicago: Race and Community Resistance to Urban Redevelopment. New York: New York University Press. https://nyupress.org/9781479813568/building-a-better-chicago/

Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette and Manuel Pastor.  2021.  South Central Dreams: Finding Home and Building Community in South L.A. New York: New York University Press. https://nyupress.org/9781479807970/south-central-dreams/

Korver-Glenn, Elizabeth. 2021. Race Brokers: Housing Markets and Segregation in 21st Century Urban America. New York: Oxford University Press. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/race-brokers-9780190063863

Montgomery, Alesia (2020). Greening the Black Urban Regime: The Culture and Commerce of Sustainability in Detroit. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/greening-black-urban-regime

Stuber, Jenny. 2021. Aspen and the American Dream: How One Town Manages Inequality in the Era of Supergentrification. University of California Press. https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520306608/aspen-and-the-american-dream

Taplin-Kaguru, Nora E. 2021. Grasping for the American Dream: Racial Segregation, Social Mobility, and Homeownership. New York, NY: Routledge.https://www.routledge.com/Grasping-for-the-American-Dream-Racial-Segregation-Social-Mobility-and/Taplin-Kaguru/p/book/9780367075941

Xu, Fang. 2021. Silencing Shanghai: Language and Identity in Urban China. Lanham: Lexington Books.            https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793635310/Silencing-Shanghai-Language-and-Identity-in-Urban-China

Call for Papers: The State and the Covid Crisis

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Special Issue in the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society
Editors: Mia Gray, Michael Kitson, Linda Lobao, and Ron Martin

This Special Issue aims to address the big debates about whether and how the pandemic has changed the role of the state at the level of localities and regions. While the state’s role in some nations has clearly shifted dramatically, these changes remain influenced by earlier actions (the reduction in public sector spending, the weakening of regulatory authority, and the overall diversion of resources to the private sector) associated with the promotion of neoliberalism and austerity. To what degree has the response to the pandemic re-shaped the structure, remit, and processes of the state? In exploring the changed role of the post-Covid state, articles might address such questions as the following:

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Chair’s Message (Winter 2021)

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Derek Hyra
American University
2021 Winter, Vol. 34, No.1 

Let me start by wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and productive New Year. 2020 was nothing short of a high speed train wreck. The pandemic and continued police brutality brought on immeasurable suffering and loss, exposing once again the dire consequences of systemic racial inequality. Communities of color have been disproportionally affected by this virus and police aggression. Now more than ever our sociologically-informed, community and urban research is greatly needed, and I implore you to position your work to help fuel social justice efforts aimed at ameliorating racial and spatial inequality.

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