The Coronavirus Pandemic has altered the ways we use shared space fundamentally. Policymakers across the nation have enabled police to deploy the power of the state to limit unnecessary and dense usage of public spaces and private gatherings. Such social distancing policies are critical in flattening the pandemic curve of an effective and efficient airborne virus and lessening the public health burden

The impact of COVID‐19 on racially minoritized communities in the United States has forced us all to look square in the face of the systemic racism that is embedded in every fabric of our society. As the number of infected people continues to rise, the racial disparities are glaringly obvious. Black and Latinx communities have been hit considerably harder by this pandemic. Both racial/ethnic groups

Despite decades of research on residential mobility and neighborhood effects, we know comparatively less about how people sort across geography. In recent years, scholars have been calling for research that considers residential selection as a social stratification process. In this paper, we present findings from work our team has done over the last 17 years to explore how people end up living where

In American sociology, segregation is usually conceived in terms of spatial concentration, social isolation, and the consolidation of race, place, and poverty. This conceptualization fails to capture the reality of segregation in many of the largest cities in the Global South. Studying segregation in these places presents an opportunity to “open up” the concept and reimagine it more expansively. In

Herbert Gans’ classic book, The Levittowners, has inspired generations of urban sociologists studying American suburbs, but it has also confined the field's focus to studies of the local community. At the same time, however, outside the discipline of American urban sociology, an interdisciplinary field of global suburban studies has flourished. Global suburban studies address a wider range of topics

How can the gentrification scholarship of US urban sociologists be enhanced by expanding beyond the confines of the Global North to include empirical and theoretical analyses of Southern gentrifications? This article engages the debate around the utility of the gentrification concept outside of postindustrial Northern cities. It argues that, in contrast to geographers and other interdisciplinary urbanists

Although urban violence is most often theorized in relation to marginality, violence affects wealthy and poor in Latin America, albeit in different ways. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork and media coverage of a gruesome turf war in Monterrey, Mexico, this paper illustrates how an increase in violence lead the upper class to “disembed” the municipality of San Pedro from the Monterrey Metropolitan Area

This paper highlights the qualitative component of a larger mixed methodological study that explores how community stakeholders, most impacted by gentrification pressures in the Twin Cities, understand neighborhood change as it impacts their daily lives. The purpose is to expand the current theorization of gentrification through examining the lived experiences of those most impacted. We illuminate

Although situating itself at the core, the mainstream is not the center that embraces and draws the diverse nation together. Although attributing to itself a singleness of purpose and resolve, the mainstream is neither uniform nor powerful in its imperialism and hegemony. Although casting the periphery beyond the bounds of civility and religion, the mainstream derives its identity, its integrity, from

Despite the doubling in size of the middle class and the significant housing increase in Turkey, little research has examined housing outcomes of middle‐income households, particularly relative to affluent households. The housing increase and 2007 Mortgage Law could have reduced housing differences between middle‐income and affluent households, but the rise in gated communities could have increased

Landlords are important gatekeepers in the rental market, and scholars have studied landlord perceptions across different markets. But differences between landlord logics within a market, which drive landlord behaviors, have been largely unexamined. Drawing chiefly on 30 in‐depth landlord interviews and 20 observations with property managers in Philadelphia, I argue that landlords exhibit a range of

In the United States, soaring rent burdens and a dearth of affordable housing leave millions of renters at risk of eviction. The eviction epidemic is particularly pronounced in California where advocates estimate that approximately 500,000 renters are evicted annually. Research has looked at individual‐level determinants of evictions, but we know much less about the spatial dynamics of eviction and

How does culture influence the political and economic processes shaping cities? Socially rich but unprofitable land uses, such as community gardens, create a trade‐off between maintaining local character and increasing exchange value. To understand how less profitable land uses can prevail in development conflicts, I examined documents and interviewed advocates for Seattle's P‐Patch program, which

Research has repeatedly found that displacement is not more likely in gentrifying neighborhoods. Since the dependent variable—displacement—is difficult to measure, researchers resort to a variety of proxy measures for it. I classify three types of proxies: a population approach that measures compositional changes in neighborhoods over time, an individual approach that measures individual housing mobility

Expanding scholarship on urban farming has not systematically examined what spurs the proliferation of cultivation practices, especially when the city is undergoing economic and social transitions. This study examines the development of the urban cultivation (UC) scene in New Orleans over the decade following Hurricane Katrina with a particular focus on entrepreneurial UC projects. By contextualizing

Does low‐level policing increase during gentrification? If so, are police responding to increased crime, increased demand by new residents, or are they attempting to “clean up” neighborhoods marked for economic redevelopment? To address these questions, I construct a longitudinal dataset of New York City neighborhoods from 2009 to 2015. I compile data on neighborhoods’ demographics, street stops, low‐level

Scholars define emerging gateway metropolitan areas in the United States as regions in which immigrant communities settled after the 1990s. Historically, immigrant and minority neighborhoods are characterized by exclusion from conventional sources of financial capital––factors which compound risks associated with residential instability and foreclosure. Yet, these new gateways may offer protection

This paper examines the intersection of neighborhood change and parish reconfiguration in Charlestown, MA. The merger of two Roman Catholic churches has unsettled the congregational cultures, just as gentrification is unsettling broader neighborhood dynamics. Based on findings from 28 in‐depth interviews and participant‐observation, I examine the spatial reproduction of neighborhood segregation in

Research has demonstrated health care consequences of racial/ethnic residential segregation. Here, I test one possible mechanism—the distribution of community health care organizations and service providers across urban communities. Using data from a 2013 survey on children's health care utilization in the Phoenix urbanized area combined with data on a 2013 census of health care organizations, I estimate

Background: African American (AA) teens endure disproportionately high rates of adolescent dating abuse (ADA). There is a limited understanding of the community‐specific pathways that contribute to AA youth's higher risk. The purpose of this study is to investigate AA youths’ perspectives on the antecedents of ADA. Methods: Data were collected from interviews (n = 38) with AA teens. Thematic content

This article utilizes recently published US Census data covering the pre‐and post‐Great Recession period (1990–2015) to identify key determinants of growth among small urban places in the New England Region. We find little evidence of random growth and robust evidence of convergence in growth, indicating that smaller urban areas tend to experience faster rates of growth than larger ones, over both

Public spaces serve as an important site of social interaction. They allow people to gather and socialize away from home and work. This article discusses the meaning of urban public space and its role in the socialization of users in the market and the discussion of public space as a part of the socialization of businessmen and people who meet there for shopping, recreation, and establishing social

The introduction and progressive consolidation of the paradigm of sustainability, and specifically that of social sustainability, has led to changes in the content attributed to the idea of the social in scientific discourse on the city and urban contexts. In this article, discourse analysis methods are used to assess these changes quantitatively and qualitatively as well as to highlight the new scientific

Following the Great Recession, homeownership rates declined precipitously, raising concerns for the stability and well‐being of neighborhoods. While many studies document shifts in household constraints, this article draws from foreclosure records from 2006 to 2011, subsequent transactions, tax exemption filings, and maintenance data in Boston, Massachusetts to show how the foreclosure crisis altered

As the economies of production and trade have dwindled in Western cities, urban locales have had to capitalize on other opportunities for growth. Middle and upper class consumers are now sought after resources for cities and neighborhoods once supported by manufacturing. This article considers the role of local retail actors in shifting neighborhood identity towards luxury consumption. Important in

This article extends Suttles’ (1972) theory of the defended neighborhood by applying the framework to a contemporary context and exploring the social processes that residents of a diverse community used to defend their neighborhood from change. Drawing on data from an ethnography of Beverly—a stably diverse, highly efficacious, upper middle‐class neighborhood on Chicago's far southwest side—I identify

While many older adults live in neighborhoods undergoing gentrification, research rarely explores their narratives about the gentrification process and their relationships with gentrifiers. This study uses discourse analysis of ethnographic data in Queens, NY, to identify repertoires in older adults’ narratives about the meaning of place and gentrification. Five distinct repertoires emerged: (1) gentrification

This article presents the case for utilizing business directories in building commercial gentrification indexes as tools for research on neighborhood change. It reviews several existing methods of capturing retail change within the growing literature, codifies them as the boutique index, the food index, and the ethnic index, and discusses methodological issues that emerge in building them. A comparative

Amidst findings of increased bicycling in the United States, research continues to demonstrate that women and racial minorities are underrepresented as cyclists in the United States (Buehler and Pucher 2012). While quantitative data may reveal estimates of these disparities, we know little about the motivations or deterrents related to cycling as they are experienced by individuals. This article draws

Standard narratives on the relationship between art and urban development detail art networks as connected to sources of dominant economic, social, and cultural capital and complicit in gentrification trends. This research challenges the conventional model by investigating the relationship between grassroots art spaces, tied to marginal and local groups, and the political economy of development in

This article investigates how governments use dramatic natural events such as disasters to justify potentially unpopular policy interventions. I use the case of the southern Indian city of Chennai to explore how different arms of the government have historically engaged with the question of slum tenure from the 1960s until the present moment. Using archival methods, I analyze policy documents to excavate

In this paper, we investigate the ethnic politics of commercial gentrification. We discuss how ethnicity is conceived of, managed by, and integrated into urban policy; and how the changing ethnic composition of the neighborhood is perceived and lived by entrepreneurs with different ethnic and class backgrounds. We employ the notion of “mixed embeddedness,” coined by Kloosterman et al., to understand

High Point, North Carolina, once known as the “Home Furnishings Capital of the World” for its vast manufacturing complex, has suffered intense deindustrialization over the past 60 years. During this same time, however, High Point has competed with much more prominent cities to become the world's most important furniture exposition node and a major design, fashion, and merchandising center. Exploiting

Urban lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community research in sociology has largely ignored LGBTQ communities in the most common urban form: small cities. In this article, I argue that LGBTQ communities in small cities are an underexplored source of theory making about LGBTQ communities more broadly, and I highlight the ways such research enhances LGBTQ community research. I first

This paper explores the ways notions of community are produced and understood by homeowners/ members, staff, and board members of eight Community Land Trusts (CLTs) in the state of Minnesota. The CLT model utilizes a mixed property regime that ensures the permanent affordability of land to make it accessible to low‐income people. In most cases, CLT land is made up of noncontiguous parcels spread across

This study aims to examine feelings of safety and the correlates to feelings of decreased worry toward crime within individuals’ proximate environments. Data from adults living in Southeast Queensland (N = 72) were collected using a mobile application. Findings of a thematic analysis of these data suggest that safety perceptions are primarily driven by (a) physical features of the proximate environment

This study concerns the struggle for Philadelphia's LOVE Park, which involved the general public and its functionaries on one side and skateboarders on the other. This paper argues LOVE Park was one place composed of two distinct spaces: the public space the public engendered and the common space the skateboarders produced. This case demonstrates that public and common space must be understood as distinct

In recent years, cities in North America have declared public health emergencies in response to opioid‐related overdoses and fatalities. Municipalities are reacting with various interventions and degrees of urgency, whereas harm reduction organizations coordinate the street‐level fight against death. Though drug use has long been concentrated in urbanized and downtown areas, these neighborhoods are

Despite the widely hailed importance of gay bars, what we know of them comes largely from the gayborhoods of four “great cities.” This paper explores the similarities of 55 lone small‐city gay bars to each other and the challenges they pose to the sexualities and urban literatures. Small‐city gay bars have long been integrated with straight people in their often red‐state communities; they are undifferentiated

Two cities loom large in the history of American urban restructuring. New York City's 1975 technical bankruptcy and Detroit's 2013 Chapter 9 bankruptcy have played an oversized role in urban theory. This is currently reflected in competing theories of post‐recession urban restructuring. “Austerity urbanism” uses Detroit as an exemplar, whereas “pragmatic municipalism” adopts the converse position arguing

Previous research, primarily using survey data, highlights preferences about neighborhood racial composition as a potential contributor to residential segregation. However, we know little about how individuals, especially parents, understand neighborhood racial composition. We examine this question using in‐depth interview data from a racially diverse sample of 156 parents of young children in two

Mediterranean style houses, mansions, and villas are found in elite enclaves around the world. There is a large literature on gated communities. However, the ubiquity of this Mediterranean style as a global and cross‐cultural phenomenon has been underexamined. Enclaves in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the Middle East often look the same suggesting the global commodification of this aesthetic ideal

Gentrification processes may involve both racial and class demographic transitions. In these cases, questions about racial segregation and integration become particularly pertinent. Neighborhoods appearing racially diverse, according to quantitative neighborhood‐level measures, may not necessarily exhibit sustained interracial contact. In these contexts, I ask: how do local events and businesses contribute

Proponents of gentrification often use some rendition of a “rising tide lifts all boats” justification when assessing the impact that gentrification has on original residents in a gentrifying area. One of the benefits that is widely accepted by proponents and opponents of gentrification is that homeowners experience an increase in property values that can easily be transferred to family wealth or cash

There is a discord between the categorization of mixed‐race data in spatial studies, which has become more complex as the mixed‐race population increases. We offer an efficient, spatially based method for assigning mixed‐race respondents into single‐race categories. The present study examined diversity within 25 Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the United States to develop this racial bridging method

Emerging attention to the spatial dynamics of political contention points to the spatially situated nature of mobilization, and, in turn, how space is socially produced through collective action. Drawing from interviews and archival research, this article examines an urban university social movement organization and its relationship to a larger social movement network in an urban context. In response

In recent years, cities around the world have increasingly relied on culture‐based development strategies for the revitalization of urban areas, such as urban heritage and the development of a creative economy. Typically, either one of these practices is put in place; however, in Kampong Glam, Singapore, both heritage development and creative economy strategies have been adopted by the national government

This article presents the outcomes of a research project conducted in five small Russian towns. Different coalitions between local actors take place in all communities. However, coalitions that meet the criteria of the urban regime (in Stone's classical interpretation) have been discovered, with certain reservations, only in two towns. For a number of characteristics, these coalitions differed from

Urban sociologists and gentrification scholars have long been interested in examining the combination of structural and micro‐level forces that result in the displacement and exclusion of low‐income residents from changing neighborhoods. However, the types of everyday activities and the social and spatial practices that exclude residents who remain in these neighborhoods are an understudied part of

Music consumption imbues a city's neighborhoods with a character all their own, contributing to a vibrant and dynamic map of urban cultures. Brick‐and‐mortar music retailers remain an important site for this consumption, persisting despite challenges posed by digitization. But the landscape of contemporary cultural consumption has been shaped by urban inequality over time. Using a unique dataset of

Research on sexuality and space emphasizes geographic and institutional forms that are stable, established, and fixed. By narrowing their analytic gaze on such places, which include gayborhoods and bars, scholars use observations about changing public opinions, residential integration, and the closure of nighttime venues to conclude that queer urban and institutional life is in decline. We use queer

Positioning itself against arguments that claim that the Model Cities program (initially known as the 1966 Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act) was either an unmitigated failure, an attempt to co‐opt activists, or an effort to introduce the “carceral state” nationwide, this paper examines the implementation of Model Cities in a historically integrated suburb and argues that while

Some have questioned the financial wisdom of homeownership and, especially, Black homeownership. This is understandable because the mortgage crisis dealt heavy blows to Black homeowners. One concern is that home values may not appreciate as much where Blacks purchase homes. We examine how Black homebuyers fared compared to White and Latino buyers in terms of home appreciation during the 2012 to 2017

Neighborhood income segregation is a widespread phenomenon. We explore its origins by modeling neighborhood selection by native Norwegian households making inter‐neighborhood moves, distinguishing influences of shares of three income groups and the discrepancy between the individual household's income and neighborhood median. We conduct a conditional logit analysis employing 2013–2014 population register

Research often links gentrification to racial inequality. Nevertheless, scholars know surprisingly little about whether the racial composition of gentrifiers moderates the consequences of gentrification. Few quantitative studies compare the effects of gentrification across different racial groups, and those that do tend to limit their outcome of interest to housing. This paper represents perhaps the

This study uses participant observation to examine how an all‐female collective in Los Angeles uses urban cycling culture as a way to contest inequalities and advocate for social change in communities of color. Bridging the literatures on gentrification and social movements, I examine how the collective uses the bicycle as a unifying tool to draw disparate individuals together and, through the group's

Research on how neighborhood racial composition affects where gentrification unfolds yields mixed conclusions, but these studies either capture broad national trends or highly segregated cities. Drawing on the case of Seattle—a majority‐White city with low segregation levels and growing ethnoracial diversity—this study uncovers an underexplored mechanism shaping patterns of uneven development and residential

In an era of mass incarceration in the United States, neighborhood context plays a significant role in demographic patterns of imprisonment. This paper examines the preprison neighborhood environment of racial and ethnic groups within the Massachusetts prison admission population. The data include over 12,000 prison records of individuals sentenced to state prison for a criminal offense between 2009

Research on American secondary cities has largely focused on so‐called “rust belt” cities and has found that they tend to have economic stagnation, racialization, and urban decay in their urban cores occurring after economic crises. Most urban research on Canadian cities has, by contrast, focused on the country's largest cities, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, and has found that urban cores are getting