Interview with Derek Hyra, Winner of the 2023 Publicly-Engaged Scholar Award

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Derek Hyra, Professor of Public Administration and Policy and Founding Director of the Metropolitan Policy Center at American University, won the 2023 ASA Community and Urban Sociology section’s Publicly Engaged Scholar Award. Derek, an expert in neighborhood change, housing policy, urban politics, and race, served as board chair of the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority and Alexandria Planning Commissioner and is currently a member of the City of Falls Church Planning Commission. His research and advocacy have informed national legislative debates on the subprime lending crisis as well as secured greater affordable housing funds and improved mixed-income housing developments in Virginia. Thalia Tom reached out to him to discuss his research. Thanks to Derek for participating in our interview series!

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Chair’s Message: Summer 2024

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By Elena Vesselinov

July 12, 2024

Dear all,

As we approach the ASA Annual Meeting in Montreal, and therefore the end of my term as the section’s chair, I would like to share some reflections. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to serve the section in many different roles over the years, including as chair. The most remarkable affair for me to witness, in this latest position, was the enthusiasm of our members to take part in all different section activities. Throughout the year, members readily responded to all calls for participation! For example, the section’s awards committees had the privilege of reviewing numerous excellent nominations and selected outstanding winners and honorable mentions for all awards. We will celebrate this successful award season at the CUSS reception!

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City Spotlight: Montréal

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In our summer issues, the CUSS newsletter team solicits a short piece that introduces CUSS members to the location of the ASA annual meeting. This year, Jan Doering (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, jan.doering@utoronto.ca) generously agreed to write this year’s city spotlight. Thank you, Jan, for your introduction to Montréal! 

Montréal, a contradictory city

Montréal is unlike any other North American city, and I am not working up to the tired observation that Montréal is “so European.” What makes Montréal unique is its contradictory status as a multilingual and diverse city in Québec, a province that proudly insists on the dominance of the French language and Québécois identity. This contradictory status frequently pits Montréal against its province but also produces social conflict within the city, inflecting how debates unfold and how local issues are addressed (see also Carpentier 2022).

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City & Community – Graduate Editorial Assistants Program

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City and Community launched a new Graduate Editorial Assistants Program this year. The aim has been to expose doctoral students to academic publishing, help them to become professional evaluators of academic writing, and support them in their own work. They also received a $250 stipend for their participation.

This year, there were four doctoral students. As part of the editorial team, students have been learning how academic publishing works through seminar-like sessions with the editor and managing editor. They have helped evaluate new submissions to determine their fit and look for potential reviewers. They also meet regularly as a group to discuss academic publishing and workshop drafts of their papers.

Here are the four students and a little blurb from each one about themselves and what they’re getting out of the program:

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2024 CUSS Sessions in Montreal

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1. Interdisciplinarity and Urban Sociology
Session Organizers: Xuefei Ren and Claire Herbert
Presider: TBD

Individual Presentations:
“Challenging the Ecology of Social Disorganization,” Matthew J. DelSesto.
“Reclaiming Spaces, Shifting Safety: A Difference-in-Differences Analysis of Brownfield Redevelopment and Crime Trends in Chicago,” Marisol Becerra and Agustina Laurito.
“The Sociology of Drywall: Labor, Monopoly Capitalism, and Environmental Hazards,” Albert S. Fu.
“‘Urban-Rural Politics’: The Social Dynamics of Spatial Planning in Urbanizing China,” Bingzhe Lu.

2. Racial Capitalism and the Financialization of the City
Session Organizer: Luana Pinto Coelho
Presider: Elizabeth Korver-Glenn

Individual Presentations:
“A Racial Capitalist Perspective on Debt Blocks,” Ian Kennedy, Kate Krushinski O’Neill, Ryan Paul Larson, Sarah K.S. Shannon, and Alexes Harris.
“Boomtown Landlording: Real Estate Speculation, Racialized Displacement and the Persistence of Small Landlords in Austin, Texas,” Andrew Ford Messamore.
“’It’s a Land Grab:’ Financialized Development Under Racial Capitalism,” Matthew Atwell.
“Reflecting on the Pandemic: Is Using Big Data Another Tool of Racial Capitalism?” Tabitha R. Ingle.
“Using the Master’s Tools: How CLTs’ Legal Models Enable and Constrain Their Work,” Victoria F. Sisk.

3. Suburbs, Small Towns, and Midsize Cities
Session Organizer: Kiara Wyndham-Douds
Presider: Thalia Tom

Individual Presentations:
“Brokering Time: The Impact of Circulating Experts in Suburban Housing Policy,” Jennifer Girouard.
“Bubble vs Real World: Narratives of Place and Privilege in Suburbia,” Whitney Gecker.
“Gentrification and The Social Disruption of Neighborhoods,” Payton Johnson.
“Huesos Ganadores: Domino Play and Parks as Sites of Latinx Pla(y)cemaking,” Teresa Irene Gonzales and Lilian Wynne Platten.
“New Immigrants in Local Politics,” Jonathan Acosta.

4. Urban Inequalities Across Canada
Session Organizer: Prentiss Dantzler
Presider: Jan Doering

Individual Presentations:
“Assessing diversity among urban mobile home residents in Canada,” Lora A. Phillips.
“A Tale of Two Cities: Heterogeneity in Racial/Ethnic Discrimination in the Canadian Housing Market,” S. Michael Gaddis.
“Subsidized housing: The solution to housing affordability issues?” Kate Hee Choi and Arabella Soave.
“Toronto’s Drug Policy Paradox: Harm Reduction Sites versus Drug Arrests in Toronto Neighborhoods (1992-2020),” Taylor Domingos.

5. Community and Urban Sociology Section Refereed Roundtables
Session Organizer: Thalia Tom

Community and Urban Sociology Section Virtual Mini-Conference

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Building Communities in Research and Practice

We are excited to announce a virtual mini-conference giving an opportunity to graduate and postdoctoral students to present their recent scholarly research, network with mentors and each other. There will be one session of concurrent paper presentations, where invited mentors will give feedback to the student presenters. Each paper session will have 4 student presenters at maximum and one invited mentor, who will serve as a presider/discussant. There will also be three professional workshops: (1) Dissertation Workshop, (2) Navigating the Job Market and (3) Publishing, Fellowships, and Grants Workshop.

Date: Friday, April 12, 2024, 12:00 pm – 4:45 pm EST (to accommodate attendees from different time zones).

Registration: Interested students should submit an extended abstract of two pages, with the following clearly marked sections: (1) Introduction to the topic; (2) Hypotheses/Research Questions; (3) Methodology; and (4) Preliminary Results.

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Chair’s Message: Summer 2023

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Dear CUSS Members,

I hope everyone is enjoying summer.  I am looking forward to seeing many of you at our meetings in Philadelphia this week.  We have been busily planning our section events, starting with our reception which will take place on Thursday evening at the Post.   We have an exciting slate of section sessions that start the next morning with “Reimagining Urban and Community Sociology through Data Science”, followed by “Education and Urban Inequality”, “Climate Change, Urban Inequality, and the Future of Cities”, and “Critical Approaches to the Study of Policing of Urban Spaces”.   Our roundtable sessions cover the following themes: Contesting Urban Governance, Education in the Urban Context, Framing Diversity and Contestation, Gentrification, Getting Housed, Losing Shelter, Housing, Planning, and Politics, Neighboring and Community, Police and Spatial Surveillance, Race and Place, Urban Business and Property, and Urban Theory.  I would like to thank the session organizers for putting together a stellar group of papers.  Our business meeting will immediately follow the roundtables and will include our awards presentations. 

This has been a busy year for CUSS.  Many of the discussions that have taken place during my term have centered on ways to improve the section to foster broader involvement and inclusivity, particularly in both elected and volunteer leadership roles.  One of the most visible steps that has been taken towards this end has been in revamping our awards process, including in the constitution of committees, awards submissions, and evaluations.  We now have a portal for awards submissions that allows collects the same information from all applicants, as well as requiring text based only submission of articles aimed at mitigating some sources of potential bias in the review process.  We are open to suggestions about how to improve these processes moving forward.    

As my term concludes in August, I wanted to express how much of a pleasure it has been to serve CUSS as your chair. I am excited to welcome in the new leadership and opportunities to contribute to the continued growth and success of our section.

Best,

Mary J. Fischer

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