City & Community is excited to host “Studying Racism and Capitalism in Cities” on Thursday, February 16, at 6:30PM (ET). Differing from webinars we have hosted in the past which have been tailored to junior scholars, this event launches a new virtual panel series on topics within the journal’s scope in which more established scholars share their experiences and intellectual journeys with the intention of both guidance and information.
Read morePamela J. Prickett
University of Amsterdam
CUSS Newsletter Summer 2022, Vol. 35, No. 2
“I think of the view from a favorite arroyo in the late afternoon, the east slope still bathed in sunlight, the far slope already full of dark shade and lengthening shadows. A cool breeze, as one can look across the plains, out over miles of homes and trees, and hear the faraway hum of traffic on the high-ways and see the golden light filtering through the mist-laden air.”
-Carey McWilliams, Southern California: An Island on the Land
Much has changed about the views across Southern California in the time since McWilliams wrote these words in 1946, but the golden light remains. Sunsets in Southern California are unforgettable. Layers of tangerine, fuchsia, and violet light the sky. The sun may rise in the east, where ASA more often meets, but it sets in the west, and in this way SoCal does not disappoint. For those of you embarking on Los Angeles for this year’s annual meeting, do yourself a favor and try to make it to a hilltop or beachside to take in the cornucopia of colors at dusk (just don’t skip the CUSS reception on Sunday).
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by Simon Yamawaki Shachter, University of Chicago
CUSS Newsletter Summer 2022, Vol. 35, No. 2
On the United State’s West Coast, in the second half of the 19th century, four small towns grew into large cities: Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; and Los Angeles, California. Despite sharing similar political, economic, and demographic environments, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco developed notably pluralistic and prolific civil societies while Los Angeles’s became relatively smaller and more elite. Through a historical analysis of Los Angeles’s initial growth, I ask the question, why did Los Angeles develop the unique civil society that we still see today?
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By Jan Lin, Occidental College
CUSS Newsletter Summer 2022, Vol. 35, No. 2
The area of Los Angeles that is made up of the Los Angeles Convention Center, its adjacent Crypto.com Arena (previously Staples Center), and LA Live is a vibrant tourism, sports, and entertainment showplace that exports “showtime” NBA basketball and Hollywood film and music culture to the U.S. and the rest of the world. Culture industries are leading sectors in Los Angeles just as finance/Wall Street is a leading sector in New York City. Luxury hotels and condominium towers have sprouted in the neighborhood in the last 15 years, some involving transnational Chinese investor visas or corporate capital including the JW Marriott hotel, the 4-towered Metropolis complex, and the 3-towered Oceanwide Plaza. Further north on Figueroa Street is the Wilshire Grand Center, which was financed by Hanjin/Korean Airlines and in 2017 took claim as the tallest building (including its spire) west of Chicago. Look at the top at night for the neon red and blue yin-yang Korean Air logo which alternates with the “I” brand logo of the on-site InterContinental Hotel.
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Congratulations to our 2022 Award Winners, and much thanks to the award committees. Award recipients will be honored at our section reception at the ASA Annual Meeting in Los Angeles.
Read moreThe 2021 Jane Addams Article Award was awarded to Josh Pacewicz and John N. Robinson III for their article “Pocketbook Policing: How Race Shapes Municipal Reliance on Punitive Fines and Fees in the Chicago Suburbs.” Published in Socio-Economic Review in 2021, this article draws on both quantitative and qualitative methods to show how municipal reliance on fines and fees varies across race and class lines in the Chicago suburbs. Josh Pacewicz is Associate Professor of Sociology at Brown University, John N. Robinson III is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Princeton University. Andrew Messamore and Benny Witkovsky reached out to John and Josh to discuss their article and an abridged version of that discussion is below. Thanks to John and Josh for participating in our interview series!
Let’s start by talking about this paper. What did you seek to find? What did you ultimately find?
Robinson: We originally wanted to take an exploratory look at the problem of fines and fees, which had become a big topic of dialogue in the aftermath of Ferguson. Once we got into the data, we saw that these monetary punishments were concentrated in many Black suburbs, and especially relatively affluent ones. For context, the financial penalties that we found in these communities (mostly traffic fines, but also things like fines for overgrown weeds) differed from those we would find in much poorer areas (see, for example, Alexes Harris’ pathbreaking work, which focuses on the penalties associated with criminal prosecution). The racialized effect of fines and fees in the lives of poor households and communities is more dramatic and impactful over the long-term. But our findings on these relatively affluent Black areas show that these communities are in some ways more like poorer Black communities than their affluent white counterparts. Importantly, we also found that the places dealing with these penalties also suffered a range of other issues that white affluent communities didn’t, including exorbitantly high property taxes, exploitative tax incentive schemes, deficient public services, etc.
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Inna Mirzoyan
Michigan State University
CUSS Newsletter Summer 2022, Vol. 35, No. 2
During one of my first weeks as a 2021 Fulbright researcher in Yerevan, Armenia, I explored the capital city’s oldest district, Kond. The Kond district and its ruins have been revitalized with street art and graffiti to attract locals and tourists alike. Immediately, the multiple references to Los Angeles stood out to me. Specifically, one large wall that I photographed reflected the transnational experience of the Armenian Diaspora with large text that read “Yerevan to L.A.” and “Little Armenia.” Six months later, in 2022, I traveled for my second phase of fieldwork in L.A. and saw a similar global conversation happening between diasporans and locals.
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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?
Read moreJackelyn Hwang, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Stanford University, was the winner of the 2020 Jane Addams Award for best article. Jackelyn’s innovative research agenda examines the relationship between how neighborhoods change and the persistence of neighborhood inequality by race and class in US cities. We reached out to ask her to discuss her research, and we’re including her responses below. Thanks to Jackelyn for participating in our interview series!
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The winner of the 2020 Robert E. Park Award is Sites Unseen: Uncovering Hidden Hazards in American Cities. New York: Russell Sage Foundation by Scott Frickel & James R. Elliott. It is part of the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology. Below is a discussion with the winners on industrial waste and its legacy in the urban landscape.
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Community and Urban Sociology 