Race is frequently framed as a background factor, added complication, or parallel process in the urban policy literature –if it is mentioned at all. Housing foreclosures may affect Latinos in Phoenix more often, or poverty in Chicago may affect African American youth more frequently, for example, but the causal role of racism and racialization is often downplayed. These are class problems, so the tendency goes; race is a mere variable (if it is invoked at all). This panel features an eclectic set of papers that foreground the role of race in the construction, analysis, and resolution of urban problems. The topics of the session are varied—from ethno-racial multi-generational household differences, to African American tenant activism in Atlanta, to the role of race in the production of land abandonment in Rust Belt cities. Theoretical perspectives are similarly varied, ranging from group threat approaches, to critical race theory, to urban political economy. The common thread is the centering and theorizing of race in the study of urban policy, with the goal of creating more inclusive and critical urban theories and analyses.
Race and the Production of Extreme Land Abandonment in the American Rust Belt Jason Hackworth, Case Western Reserve University The Role of Race and Ethnicity in Seniors’ Economic Outcomes in Multigenerational Households Deirdre Pfeiffer, Arizona State Unviversity
Comparing Black Tenant Activism In and Out of Atlanta's Public Housing Developments Akira Rodriguez, Unviersity of Pennsylvania School of Design
