Urban Consortium Research

Bruce Berg, Political Science
New York City Politics, Government, Urban Health Policy

Healing Gotham
9781421415994
Johns Hopkins University Press
March 12, 2015

New York City Politics
9780813586663
Rutgers University Press
June 22, 2008

Should New York City reconsider term limits?

from city and state new york“Ask the Experts”: Does allowing former members to run again after a hiatus contradict the purpose of term limits?

Bruce Berg, professor of political science at Fordham University: The primary goals of New York City’s term limits law were to bring fresh faces and ideas to the City Council and to decrease the role of professional politicians in local policy making. Allowing former council members to run again, even after a break, does appear to contradict the goals of term limits. Looking at recent City Council elections, however, many of the newly elected council members replacing the term limited council members have been former council staff, family members, or individuals who have already served in elective office at the state level. They are just as much professional politicians as those whom they replaced. So the goals of term limits have not been well served by its current iteration. Professional politicians are still being elected to the council, even if they are not incumbent council members. As a result, allowing former council members to run again, after a break, would not change, or harm, the workings of the council in any significant way.

Read the full “Ask the Experts” at cityandstateny.com.

Recent Scholarship


Md Zakirul Alam Bhuiyan, Computer and Information Science
System Dependability, Computer Security

website: storm.cis.fordham.edu/~bhuiyan


Susan Block-Lieb, School of Law
Consumer Protection, Debtor Education, Bankruptcy

Recent Scholarship


Garrett Broad, Communication and Media Studies
Media and Social Change, Risk and Health Communication, Food Policy, Environmental Justice

website: garrettbroad.webflow.io
Twitter: @GarrettBroad

More Than Just Food
9780520287457
University of California Press
January 26, 2016

Cultured Meat: Present and Future Considerations

New podcast with Garrett Broad at Critically Speaking or Apple Podcasts.

from critically speaking:

Garrett Broad is an Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University and the author of More Than Just Food: Food Justice and Community Change. His research investigates the role of storytelling and communication technology in promoting networked movements for social justice. Much of his work focuses on local and global food systems, as he explores how food can best contribute to improved neighborhood health, environmental sustainability, and the rights and welfare of animals.

In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Garrett Broad discuss the emerging culture around cellular meat and the changing space for this product in the marketplace. Therese and Dr. Broad discuss how the animal cells are acquired, the process of growing the “meat" in a lab, and the types of products currently, and possibly in the future, grown in laboratories. They also discuss how food activists can make beneficial impacts on food justice and food sovereignty and change "food deserts" or "food swamps” and the communities in which they are embedded.

What Is Meat? Garrett Broad talks alternative proteins

Garrett Broad, Fordham Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies and author of More Than Just Food, examines the problems of the industrial production of animals for food—climate change, wastes resources, public health, and animal suffering—and a possible solution: lab-grown cellular agriculture, or clean meat.

“Ethical arguments to turn the world vegan haven’t worked. Instead, alternative protein advocates look to food technology to transform how the world eats.”

Listen to “What is Meat?” on WAMC's The Academic Minute.

Recent Scholarship


Colin Cathcart, Architecture
Urban Design, Sustainable Development

website: Kiss + Cathcart

Recent Scholarship


Elizabeth Cooper, School of Law
Legislation, Poverty, Sexuality, Clinics, Women

Recent Scholarship


Nestor M. Davidson, School of Law
Real Estate, Land Use, Affordable Housing, Local Government

Law And The New Urban Agenda
9780367188733
Routledge
May 15, 2020

The New Preemption Reader
9781642425604
West Academic Publishing
January 3, 2019

Global Perspectives in Urban Law
9780815372271
Routledge
December 4, 2018

The Law of the Sharing Economy
9781108255882
Cambridge University Press
November 22, 2018

Law Between Buildings
9781472474063
Routledge
October 14, 2016

Law And The New Urban Agenda

from Nestor M. Davidson & Geeta Tewari

Dear Colleagues,

The Urban Law Center's newest volume, Law and the New Urban Agenda, will be available on May 15, 2020 as an e-book and you can pre-order the hard copy now.

Given COVID-19’s impact on cities globally, it is more important than ever to highlight the significance of urban law and policy for students. This new book offers a constructive and critical valuation of the legal dimensions of the U.N.’s New Urban Agenda (NUA), adopted at the 2016 United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development to foster a globally shared understanding of the vital link between urbanization and a sustainable future. A myriad of legal challenges – and opportunities – stand between the NUA and its goals. Examining case studies from natural disasters and resulting urban migration in Honshu and Tacloban, to innovative collaborative governance in Barcelona and Turin, to the accessibility of public space for informal workers in New Delhi and Accra, and power scales among Brazil’s metropolitan regions, the contributions in this new book frame an important academic dialogue about the legal dimensions of the NUA, all of which will be of interest to scholars across the range of urban studies.

Law and the New Urban Agenda underscores the value of urban law as a discipline in supporting the healthy development of inclusive cities for all. This timely volume sheds light on the many complex challenges that urban growth poses for legal systems around the globe, and I commend this eclectic group of scholars for their engagement with the New Urban Agenda. – Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Executive Director, UN-Habitat

Pre-order Law And The New Urban Agenda.

Culture shifts in gun control preemption laws

A recent Florida ruling could mark a change in the political landscape around city gun control, said Nestor M. Davidson, Fordham Professor of Law. More than 40 states have passed “preemption laws” to keep from becoming a “patchwork of competing gun laws,” wrote Tricia L. Nadolny in USA Today. But mayors in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Dayton, and Tucson are frustrated by their inability to enact solutions to local violence.

“If the larger political culture shifts,” said Davidson, “I won’t be surprised to see if – as in Florida – the pushback does materialize in a way where, whether it’s through litigation or legislation, you are going to see the balance shift.”

Read the full article at USA Today : “Frustrated Philadelphia mayor calls for gun control. Here's why it hasn't happened in his city”.

The Confederate Statues’ Ruling

from fordham news: Law Professor Nestor Davidson joined host Craig Williams and fellow commentator, Professor Richard Schragger, on Lawyer 2 Lawyer to discuss the ruling and controversy over the removal of Confederate statues and what is next in this legal fight.

“There are important statutory issues. I think the equal protection question is an important one, and whether this ends at the Virginia Supreme Court or ultimately goes up to the U.S. Supreme Court will largely turn on whether this case is decided as a matter of Virginia law both under the statute and questions of legislative immunity which we typically decided as a question of state law. I think if the case is resolved in a way that rests on those Virginia grounds, we’ll see it end at the Virginia Supreme Court, if it goes that far, and I tend to suspect that it will given how Judge Moore has ruled. I don’t think the city is going to let that ruling stand, or at least they are going to I assume pursue an appeal but the federal constitutional question such as the equal protection defense, which really goes in many ways to the heart of the conflict about what these statues mean and who gets to speak for the community, raises important federal constitutional questions.”

Listen to the podcast on the Legal Talk Network's Lawyer 2 Lawyer

The Dilemma of Localism in an Era of Polarization

abstract. Localism, the discourse of local legal power and state-local relations, has returned to the center of national attention, driven by gridlock at the federal level and sharply rising political and cultural conflicts between cities and their states. In recent years, states have aggressively sought to constrain, eliminate, and even criminalize local policy discretion across an array of policy domains. Cities and their advocates have just as aggressively fought back—in litigation, in the political arena, and in popular discourse.

Read the paper at the Yale Law Journal

Recent Scholarship


Gregory T. Donovan, Communication and Media Studies
Internet Access, Smart Urbanism, Participatory Action and Design

website: gregorydonovan.org
Twitter: @gdonovan

Mapping Conference Tackles Justice Issues from a Geographic Perspective

from fordham news:

In a three-day symposium titled “Mapping (In)Justice,” dozens of scholars came to Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus from Nov. 7 to Nov. 9 to examine how digital mapping is being used by academics as a methodology to study justice and injustice, particularly when researching underserved communities.

Gregory Donovan, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies and co-founder of the Fordham Digital Scholarship Consortium, organized the conference with department chair Jacqueline Reich, Ph.D.

“Spatial media have politics, these are not neutral things,” said Donovan, who teaches a course of the same name as the conference for the Masters in Public Media. “We need to look at how our subjects are using digital mapping in their own lives and not just use this technology to study them from afar, like a scientist with a clipboard.”

Read the full article by Tom Stoelker at Fordham News.

View Digital Maps Project Gallery

from m(i)j project gallery: 

Recent Scholarship


Ayala Fader, Sociology and Anthropology
Urban Anthropology, Ethnicity, Gender

Mitzvah Girls
9780691139173
Princeton University Press
August 2, 2009

Recent Scholarship


Greta Gilbertson, Sociology and Anthropology
Immigration, Gender, Race and Ethnicity, Citizenship

Recent Scholarship

  • "Transnational Mobility, Domestic Arenas, and Carework Among Immigrant Women from the Dominican Republic." Latino(a) Research Review, Vol. 7 (2010): 37-58.
  • "Caregiving across Generations: Aging, State Assistance, and Multigenerational Ties among Immigrants from the Dominican Republic." Across Generations: Immigrant Families in America. New York: NYU Press, 2009.
  • "Citizenship in a Globalized World." Migration Information Source, January (2006).

Brian Glick, School of Law
Community and Economic Development

Recent Scholarship


Lauri Goldkind, Graduate School of Social Service
Social Justice, Macro Practice, Nonprofit Leadership, Capacity Building, Organizational Development

website: laurigoldkind.net
Twitter: @brooklyn11210

Digital Social Work
9780190871116
Oxford University Press
November 28, 2018

Recent Scholarship


Jennifer Gordon, School of Law
Immigration, Labor/Worker Rights, Employment

Suburban Sweatshops
9780674024045
Harvard University Press
April 30, 2007

Why a Ghent-like system is needed in the US

from the center for american progress.org:

The Ghent system—an arrangement whereby trade unions help deliver government-supported unemployment insurance—exists in its truest form only in a handful of countries, including Sweden, Belgium, and Denmark. However, the United States has a number of Ghent-like policies where unions deliver or help people access governmental benefits—including workforce training, retirement benefits, and enforcement of workplace laws. Expanding upon these models would increase union membership and improve the quality of public programs in the United States.

In "Strengthening Labor Standards Enforcement Through Partnerships with Workers' Organizations" (Politics & Society, 2010), Fordham Professor of Law Jennifer Gordon and Janice Fine of Rutgers University argue that there is a mismatch between the enforcement strategies of most federal and state labor inspectorates and the industries in which noncompliance continues to be a problem. The authors propose augmenting labor inspectorates by giving public interest groups like unions and worker centers a formal, ongoing role in enforcement in low-wage sectors.

Under a Ghent-like co-enforcement model, government could complement its traditional enforcement activity by partnering with unions and worker organizations, Fine and Gordon have explained.

Read the full report at americanprogress.org.

Recent Scholarship


Christina Greer, Political Science
Urban Politics, Black Ethnic Politics, American Politics, Public Opinion

Twitter: @Dr_CMGreer

Black Ethnics
9780199989317
Oxford University Press
June 6, 2013

Bloomberg as Candidate

from youtube:

Fordham University Associated Professor of Political Science Christina Greer talks about Mike Bloomberg as presidential candidate with Pat Kiernan of NY1.

New Queens challengers

from the city

“A long roster of progressive political newcomers is targeting Queens incumbents in local and national races — setting off primaries next year for some elected officials who’ve run unopposed for years.”
“Given gentrification and “shifting patterns of migration,” it’s natural that a crop of challengers are springing up in Queens, said , a Fordham University political science professor.

Gentrifiers are in a “higher economic class, tend to vote more and tend to demand things that community members have gotten used to not having,” she said.”

Read the full article at thecity.nyc.

Recent Scholarship


Annika Hinze, Political Science
Urban Comparative Politics, Immigration, Religious/Ethnic/National Identity, Urban Neighborhood Space

City Politics
9781138055223
Routledge
September 4, 2018

Turkish Berlin
9780816678150
Univ Of Minnesota Press
August 15, 2013

Gentrification in New York

If you go out the door and are surrounded by smoothies and coffee roasters and the Craft Beer is served in jars for a great deal of money, you know this area has been thoroughly gentrified. This can be seen in Berlin as well as in New York at a glance.

New York is becoming more and more expensive, many can hardly afford the rent in the city and are repressed - and the protest against gentrification and repression has little chance. But how do the New Yorkers actually perceive it, when once rundown neighborhoods are upgraded and everything is getting more and more expensive?

Listen to the podcast with Associate Professor of Political Science Annika M. Hinze on Radiobrücke USA.

What Makes a Great City Tick?

Director of Urban Studies, and Professor of Political Science, Annika Hinze, is researching the best practices for making cities just, fair, and equitable for all.

If you go into communities and interview people who live in what we call gentrifying communities, a lot of them welcome the changes in the neighborhood. Everybody wants to live in a nice neighborhood, with good infrastructure, and good schools that come with gentrification. It’s just that the residents want to stay in the neighborhood once it turns.

Because cities are growing in importance around the globe, Hinze said she’s eager to continue partnerships with institutions in Pretoria, Berlin, and Amsterdam, and recruit more international students to study in New York. Closer to home, courses like The Urban Lab, which is being co-taught this semester by former urban studies director Rosemary Wakeman, Ph.D., professor of history, and Fordham Law’s Sheila Foster, exemplify the way the urban studies degree is truly interdisciplinary.

Read the full story by Patrick Verel at Fordham News.

Recent Scholarship


Clare Huntington, School of Law
Family, Immigration, Poverty

Failure To Flourish
9780190658793
Oxford University Press
September 1, 2016

Empirical Evidence in the Administration of Family Law

from the regulatory review

"Each year, reports of alleged abuse and neglect of nearly 7.5 million children reach local child welfare agencies across the United States. With so many reports, agencies need to determine which require an urgent response. Many child welfare agencies are turning to empirical evidence to help triage these cases.

"In a recent paper, Clare Huntington, a law professor at Fordham University, acknowledges that empirical evidence—especially the use of predictive analytics—can improve child welfare policies and practices. But she argues that empirical data must be used with great caution."

To guide this nuance, this Essay’s framework calls for more effective gatekeeping mechanisms across the institutions of family law. It warns decisionmakers to be attentive to the potential for empirical evidence to reflect and refract the legal salience of intersecting identities, including race, gender, and class. And the framework encour­ages a robust role for legal scholars to make empirical evidence accessible and comprehensible for those crafting legal rules and policies.

Read the full report by Meghan Downey at Penn Law's The Regulatory Review.

Recent Scholarship


Julie Kleinman, Sociology and Anthropology
Migration, Borders, Urban Studies, Labor, Race, Infrastructure, Social Movements

Adventure Capital
9780520304413
Univ Of California Press
December 3, 2019

Recent Scholarship


Robin A. Lenhardt, School of Law
Race Relations, Race and the Family, Critical Race Theory

Recent Scholarship


Subha Mani, Economics
Development Economics, Applied Microeconomics, Applied Econometrics

website: fordham.edu/smani/smani/Welcome.html

Recent Scholarship


Kimani Paul-Emile, School of Law
Race and Identity Formation, Health Law, Biomedical Ethics, Drug Regulation, Law and Inequality

Prof. Kimani Paul-Emile Appointed Law and Public Affairs Fellow at Princeton University

from fordham law news: 

Professor Kimani Paul-Emile has been named a 2020–2021 fellow in Princeton University’s  Program in Law and Public Affairs (LAPA). Paul-Emile is Associate Director and Head of Domestic Programs and Initiatives at Fordham Law School’s Center on Race, Law & Justice and Faculty Co-Director of the Stein Center for Law & Ethics. She specializes in the areas of law and biomedical ethics, health law, anti-discrimination law, and race and the law. Paul-Emile will spend her LAPA fellowship working on a book project, tentatively titled Americans on Drugs: Six Drugs, Three Regimes, and the Making of the American Drug User.

Read the full article by Erin DeGregorio at Fordham Law News.

Anti-discrimination and health law

from the american medical association:

Incidents of identity-based patient bias are disturbing for all health professionals, but they can present especially intense challenges for physicians in training due to the number of patient interactions they experience. Kimani Paul-Emile, PhD, professor at Fordham University School of Law, recommends an approach to helping colleagues during a real-time discrimination incident and addressing discrimination organization-wide.

“Despite the startling statistics regarding patients’ treatment of trainees, data and overwhelming anecdotal evidence show that organizations are not adequately supporting their trainees in dealing with these abusive patient encounters. Indeed, 50% of surveyed residents who experienced or witnessed patient discrimination didn’t know how to respond, while 25% believed that nothing would be done if hospital leadership were notified.”

Read "5 ways to support medical residents facing patient discrimination" at ama-assn.org.

Recent Scholarship


W. "R.P." Raghupathi, Gabelli School of Business
Information Systems, Technology and Growth, Big Data, Sustainability

Gabelli School of Business Center for Digital Transformation

Recent Scholarship


Chris Rhomberg, Sociology and Anthropology
Urban Sociology, Labor Movements, Social Theory

The Broken Table
9780871547170
Russell Sage Foundation
April 13, 2013

No There There
9780520251663
Univ Of California Press
February 26, 2007

Recent Scholarship


Aaron Saiger, School of Law
Public Education, Education Policy, Local Government

Recent Scholarship


Aseel Sawalha, Sociology and Anthropology
Global Cities, Urban Anthropology

Reconstructing Beirut
9780292728813
Univ Of Texas Press
January, 2010

Recent Scholarship


Andrew Simons, Economics
Economic Development, Social Innovation, Environmental Economics

website: andrewmsimons.com

Recent Scholarship


Olivier Sylvain, School of Law
Communications Policy, Internet, Technology, Public Lawmaking

Twitter: @oliviersylvain

Civil Liberties in Cyberspac

from fordham law news: 

On October 23, 2019, Fordham Law School hosted a packed room of students to hear University of California, Berkeley Law Professor Pam Samuelson, the Distinguished Bacon-Kilkenny Visiting Professor of Law at Fordham, talk about “Challenges to Civil Liberties in Cyberspace.” Professor Olivier Sylvain moderated the discussion in which Professor Samuelson explored a wide range of information law issues, including the evolution of digital copyright law, privacy issues, and the First Amendment.

Both professors also spoke about privacy and data protection. The subject is particularly timely given recent congressional hearings involving Facebook and other social media companies.

Professors Samuelson and Sylvain noted the major differences between the U.S. and the European Union’s approach to privacy protections.

“The U.S. also has a relatively recent and long tradition of systematic privacy invasion,” said Sylvain. Unlike Europe, however, “laws here were in the service of racial subordination through slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation. Civil rights groups like the NAACP and the ACLU brought free speech and freedom of association cases on behalf of activists who had been surveilled by the Department of Justice, as well as state and local police,” Sylvain said.

Read the full article by Anni Irish at Fordham Law News.

Fordham law professor argues for corporate social media responsibility

Fordham Professor of Law, and Director of the McGannon Center for Communications Research, argues that the broad protections of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act should be curtailed. Speaking to The Hill in light of tensions between President Trump and Silicon Valley, Sylvain states that the current law shields social media companies from consequences when their technology is weaponized against their users:

“My argument is that the very people that civil rights statutes are written for, the very people for whom consumer protection statutes are written for, are exposed to greater threat and harm under the current broad immunity under Section 230.

“The way in which courts have read the statute, Section 230 now effectively enables the further degradation of communities that are supposed to be protected under law," he added. "The principle problem is that, free from having to attend to constitutional regulations of speech, too many companies have not heeded their social responsibility. That’s the real problem.”

Read the full article on thehill.com : “Trump seeks powers to rein in alleged tech bias”.

Helping Harlem Stay Connected

How will a new technological endeavor that brings affordable Web devices into residents’ homes through a community-based broadband network benefit residents of Harlem? Olivier Sylvain, associate professor of law at Fordham, and a team of lawyers, engineers, and entrepreneurs intend to find out.

The National Science Foundation has awarded Sylvain and his colleagues a $1 million grant over three years. The award is part of the NSF’s program for Smart and Connected Communities. The project aims to remedy the relatively low rates of broadband adoption and the deficit of advanced networked devices among Harlem residents.

Read more about Helping Harlem Stay Connected

Recent Scholarship


Nancy Wackstein, School of Social Service
Social Work, Feminism, Activism, Settlement Houses

New York City Settlement Houses

Nancy Wackstein, the Graduate School of Social Service’s Director of Community Engagement & Partnerships, takes part in a documentary on Settlement Houses on WNET’s Treasures of New York program.

Read more at WLIW21: Treasures of New York: Settlement Houses.

Recent Scholarship


Rosemary Wakeman, History
Urban History, European Cities, Social History of Architecture

A Modern History Of European Cities
9781350017665
Bloomsbury
January 23, 2020

Built Heritage: Shanghai
No. 3 Vol. 3
Tongji University Press
September 25, 2019

Practicing Utopia
9781421415994
Univ Of Chicago Press
April 5, 2016

The Heroic City
9780226870236
Univ Of Chicago Press
November 15, 2009

Modernizing The Provincial City
9780674437029
Harvard University Press
June 15, 1998

Built Heritage special issue on Shanghai

A new special issue of Built Heritage, “Shanghai: Heritage at the Crossroads of Culture,” is edited by Fordham Professor of History Rosemary Wakeman. The journal is published by the College of Architecture and Urban Planning at Tongji University in Shanghai.

from wakeman's introduction

Shanghai is among the most dynamic global cities of both the 20th and 21st centuries. The city is China’s gateway to the world and its aspirations for the future. With more than 24 million people, 40 percent of whom are migrants, it is a global crossroads and one of the most multicultural cities in the world. It has more skyscrapers than New York and a public transport system that overtakes most global cities. Shanghai is a trading city, an entrepot of commodities. It exports electronic information products, automobiles, petrochemicals, fine steel, equipment, and biomedicine. It has the highest GDP of any city in China’s mainland and has become one of the leading financial sectors in East Asia, with major Western banks flocking to its new financial centre. With well over 500 multinational companies, the city attracts more foreign investment flows than most developing countries. Along with them has come a highly-skilled workforce from all over the world. Shanghai’s urban middle-class has fuelled China’s consumer revolution and a property boom. Sleek skyscrapers and glamorous malls, its brilliant skyline, dominate the global image of Shanghai and beckon tourists to its shores.

Read more of “Shanghai: Heritage at the Crossroads of Culture” at built-heritage.net.

Rosemary Wakeman's Practicing Utopia

Practicing Utopia: An Intellectual History of the New Town Movement
University of Chicago Press (April, 2016)
9780226346038

In Practicing Utopia, Professor of History Rosemary Wakeman gives a sweeping view of the new town movement as a global phenomenon. From Tapiola in Finland to Islamabad in Pakistan, Cergy-Pontoise in France to Irvine in California, Wakeman unspools a masterly account of the golden age of new towns, exploring their utopian qualities and investigating what these towns can tell us about contemporary modernization and urban planning.

Fordham NewsProfessor Calls for Return to Regional Planning’s Utopian Age

Read more about Practicing Utopia at The University of Chicago Press Books.

Professor Calls for Return to Regional Planning’s Utopian Age

from fordham news :

The “Urban Question” is Now at the Center of Intellectual Life

In a new interview with Global Urban History.com, Rosemary Wakeman, Coordinator of Urban Initiatives and Professor of History at Fordham, discusses the intersection between global history and urban history.

The city is the locus for a wide range of philosophies and ideas, policy innovation, models, architectural and design concepts, and heritage narratives. All of it indicates the degree to which the vast, complex urban fabric in which we live has become THE arena of the imagination. This is all fantastic, but where does this abundance of interest leave urban history as an intellectual endeavor?

Read the full interview at GlobalUrbanHistory.com

Recent Scholarship


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