Isn't this Urban Systems?: The CLIME Conference

Every now and again, I attend events with the potential to allow me to gather data. Sometimes the data aligns to what I am working on and sometimes it doesn't. In either case, I will share what I got from the event.

Today Nicole and I went to a conference at the Center on Law in Metropolitan Equity (CLIME) to see David Rusk Speak. David Troutt introduced the conference and talked about CLIME. To our shock (sarcasm), this program is Urban Systems in law. As a GA/TA, I wondered, "Why haven't we been invited to work together?  Can we teach in the program?"

David Rusk was the main speaker.  He noted that his priority is people but, place is related to people, thus is important.  It was immediately obvious to me that engagement was the name of his game. He invited the audience to have a conversation with him rather than simply listening to him lecture. Already I was intrigued. He spoke about ways to measure regional inequity and also posed interventions that might address the problem. I captured some highlights from his talk, but you can check out his report here: http://rutgers.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c53659eeaae0efe17e7cf2c77&id=2cc5ff6385&e=6114cb3890

He began by asking, "What is the role of regional equity to reduce social, racial and economic inequalities and between places and people? How do you evaluate what's done? Traditionally it was about inputs. Rather than focusing on need, which the Feds do, we should focus on opportunity. This is why there is more than the necessary share public housing in selected places and now public housing in other places. He noted also that there are little box places (e.g.East coast, Midwest) and big box places (e.g. Nevada).  Being from "little box" or "big box" states influence one's institutional framework. This framework shapes how you see urban problems. 

He continued to outline what seemed to Nicole and I as concepts in Urban Systems and we wondered more and more why our program had not been included in this. He laid out racial, place-based, and economic inequalities extremely well. He also linked the urban disciplines of environment, education, health and housing together quite nicely. But he seemed to address the macro-social issue alone. The comment/question that kept popping up for me was this:

I appreciate the data and analysis that delve into these macrosocial structures such as race, economic and housing inequities, and I think a few people touched on this, but how do you address the tension between the micro and the macro? What are the suggestions regarding more micro social interactions between groups people. For instance, in terms of integration, Lemann (1991) shows us that avoiding social interaction between their children and black children is one reason as to why whites historically didn't want their children to go to school with blacks. Perceptions like that would prevent the most liberal integration polices from being effective. How do we address personal relationships among individuals to decrease these kind discriminatory perceptions we have towards one another? And how do you do this in a way that can be sustained over time to give the intervention time to potentially be effective?

Elise Boddie was the the discussant. Last year she gave a talk on campus about the legalese behind the Fisher vs Texas AM tria. She emphasized that poor whites will always push back when comparing poor minorities' circumstances to theirs. This line of discussion seemed to address my comment. She asked if there is some kind a mechanism we can foster to introduce diverse students into diverse school systems. She brought up a redistribution of education resources in places to ensure fairness to all. My comment remained relevant as I listened to the audience skirt around the issue. I had to get up, and ask my question. I watched several people avoid around my question and finally one woman talked about how the micro-social interventions are very necessary, they are challenging and must be deliberate, referencing efforts that occur in South Orange-Maplewood.  Nicole and I looked at each other and smiled. Following this was a short break during which two women who were part of the effort described by the woman above came over to talk about their programming. I asked them if they were open to students coming to working with them. They said Yes! Holla! Does anyone need a project?!

Following the break. David Troutt read selections from his book. In his book, The Price of Paradise, he argues that a lack of equity across regions, as it pertains to local decision making, has contributed to the inequity facing many urban areas. He called this "localism". During the talk he argued more specifically that "localism" became the more durable successor to Jim Crowism. He continued emphasizing that he considered the notions of Sampson, Massey, Brown, McEwen, and Kefalis among others to come up with his ideas. I know many Urban Systems students will recognize these scholars...so I ask again...is there a collaborative dimension to be considered between CLIME and the Urban Systems program?

Shutting it Down!: School closure impact on local community

          When I was 16, as a junior in high school, my school closed. My classmates and I were forced to spend our last year of high school as newbies in completely different schools after the high school component of our K-12 private school closed its doors. We would not go to prom together. The reputations we had built in clubs and other extracurricular activities would never foster a run for student body president. We would never decide whether or not to go to college, which college to go to or learn how to get financial aid as group. We would never get to have lead roles, reserved for seniors, in the annual school play and we wouldn’t get to graduate with our friends, some of whom had spent 11 years together, building deep relationships (I went to a K-12 where, like myself, some students had actually spent elementary, middle and high school years.) Essentially all our social ties--outside of our families and the neighborhoods we came from--were in an instant cut and the senior year we had spent so many years planning was taken from us.  I emphasize here that James Coleman describes these ties as in-school social capital, which facilitates a student’s ability to reach success in school and in many cases life. Moreover the psychological impact on us ranged from feelings of lack of belonging to feelings of hopelessness. 

Despite losing our immediate peer networks, most of the students in my class continued to have a relatively stable life beyond high school, so the blow of the losing our beloved school wasn’t very detrimental. I came from a middle class immigrant neighborhood with strong social ties. These social ties enabled my parents to leverage their social capital towards success in their children’s education and insulate me from the loss of my school. In addition, my parents still remained friends with the parents of classmates who lived close-by, thus maintaining some semblance of in-school social networks. Further, since I was a teenage and had some say in my own social life, I remained friends with my closest friends and saw them on school vacation breaks. Furthermore, I continued to go to private school and the school I went to next was actually a better resourced school. Although I didn’t become as popular as I was in my former high school, I did meet good people with whom I still communicate. Thus, I tapped into both my family’s social capital -and the network capital I built up until then- to facilitate my educational success. But what if i did not have these other networks? What if my parents did not remain friends with other parents? What if i was too young to still be able to choose to hang out with my friends? What if the next school that I went to was also under resourced?

More than often, when a school’s closes its doors, it is due failure. Schools that fail often do so because they are under-resourced in material or human capital. Under-resourced urban schools in particular, are often found in neighborhoods affected by high poverty rates. So when an urban school closes, many youth and their families are found in more dire circumstances than those I describe above. Studies have posited that a lack of social capital and institutional resources available to a community may contribute to a student’s inability to complete school (Chen, 2012; Coleman, 1988; Sampson, 2009; Sampson, 1999). While these community concerns do influence a student’s academic achievement, other studies have suggested that family characteristics significantly mediate the relationship between academic achievement/ student drop out and neighborhood factors (Ginther, Haveman, & Wolfe, 2000; Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2000; Plotnick & Hoffman, 1999). In light of this what are local community perceptions of school closings? How do they perceive the effects of school closings their community networks, cohesion, capital? Then…how do those local communities respond to these closings?