Cities across the United States have experienced an economic renaissance over the past two decades. They have also become increasingly unaffordable places to live. The gentrification of once-neglected neighborhoods has led to the widespread displacement of longtime residents, with many forced to move to the suburban periphery or falling into homelessness. While working class communities of color bear the brunt of these transformations, housing precarity is also a common experience for many professionals, with staggering rents outstripping any wage gains.
What are the historical roots of this widening urban crisis? What theories and methods can best account for the contemporary evolution of cities and the ways that spatial processes are bound up with racial, gender, and class inequality? How are directly affected communities taking action to confront gentrification and displacement and what structural alternatives are they calling for?
Drawing on Washington, DC, as our case study, this course will seek to answer these questions, with the goal of preparing students to become effective policy advocates. While our investigation will primarily center the politics of housing and development, we will also consider how where one lives intersects with their education, employment, and exposure to criminalization. For their final project, students will analyze a particular facet of urban inequality and propose a program, policy change, or organizing strategy for addressing it