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March/April 2008 Addressing Urban Inequality
By Jamie L. Freedman For decades America’s cities have been plagued by social inequality and uneven development. Concentrated poverty, urban sprawl, and hypersegregation are hallmarks of urban America, and our nation’s capital is no exception. “Washington is an excellent example of the uneven development of metropolitan areas in the United States,” says Gregory D. Squires, professor of sociology. “Since 1993, the median income of Washington, D.C., area households in the top one-fifth of the income distribution grew by 35 percent, while the median income for those in the bottom fifth declined by two percent. Within the District, those in the top fifth have a median income of $186,830, compared to $6,126 in the bottom fifth, a ratio of 31:1, which is the highest among cities in the 40 largest metropolitan areas in the United States.” GW’s Department of Sociology is addressing the problem head on through its Urban Inequality Project, one of eight new University signature programs supported by a multiyear Board of Trustees-approved special endowment payout. “The project aims to generate and disseminate knowledge on the causes, consequences, and policy responses related to urban inequality,” explains Squires, an internationally renowned expert in the field. “Our aim is to increase GW’s visibility as an important partner in addressing the problems of uneven development in urban communities, particularly Washington, D.C., and to train more students for academic as well as applied social science research careers related to urban inequality.” A primary goal of the project is to expand research in the field—an objective that the Department of Sociology is striving to achieve through the creation of research incentive awards presented to two faculty members per year. The awards reduce the professors’ teaching loads by one course, freeing them up to produce research grant proposals targeting key urban inequality issues, such as spatial patterns of crime, environmental justice, and racial correlates of access to mortgage and business loans. Awardees are assigned graduate research assistants to support them in their proposal writing. This year’s award recipients are Ron Weitzer, professor of sociology, and Pamela Davidson, assistant professor of sociology. Weitzer’s proposal, titled “Police- Community Relations in Comparative Perspective,” addresses the ways in which economic inequality intersects with race to shape neighborhood relations with police. Field research will be conducted in urban neighborhoods that have similar levels of socioeconomic disadvantage but are racially distinct. Davidson’s proposal, “The Great Divide: A Metropolitan Survey of Environmental Justice Perceptions, Environmental Health, and Health Literacy,” looks at environmental justice issues in urban environments. “Environmental degradation and exposure to toxic contaminants represent additional costs of living under conditions of poverty, a view that gave birth to the environmental justice movement over two decades ago,” she explains. “The primary objective of this study is to capitalize on a sociological perspective to study divergences in perceptions of environmental justice that account for community-level vulnerabilities, residential patterns of inequality, and notions of fairness and social justice.” A second initiative focuses on enhancing teaching in urban inequality, bringing outstanding scholars to GW to teach undergraduate and graduate courses exploring local, national, and global dimensions of the topic. Last fall, the Sociology Department brought two distinguished visiting professors to Foggy Bottom: Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, an organization devoted to reforms in criminal justice policy, who taught an undergraduate criminology course; and Jim Carr, chief operating officer of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, who taught a graduate course on urban development. “We’re delighted to have the opportunity to bring our students into direct contact with leading urban scholars in Washington, D.C., and beyond through the project,” says Squires. “We look forward to hosting more visiting scholars in the next couple of years through the endowment funding.” The distinguished visitors perfectly complement GW’s highly regarded sociology faculty. “We have a number of faculty members with national and international reputations in the field—some focusing on crime, others on economic development, others on racial inequality,” says Squires. Their impressive track record in the field includes cumulatively generating some 50 books, hundreds of scholarly articles, and dozens of op-ed pieces on urban inequality and related issues. “GW is emerging as an internationally recognized center for urban research,” states Squires. “Our selection as a University signature program recognizes the quality of our scholarship over the years and will further elevate our standing in the field. It’s a win-win situation in every way.”
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