Initiatives & Research

At the Urban Democracy Lab, we are undertaking critical, interdisciplinary research projects at different levels of development. Through our main initiatives and working groups, we bring together scholars and scholar-activists from around the world, as well as practitioners and students, to engage in focused conversations about specific urban social justice themes. We spotlight innovations in governance and policy, but also areas where democracy is missing in that race for innovation.

Current Initiatives

  Social Housing

There is a growing, nationwide housing crisis. In the last few years, the discussion among housing movements has moved from a critique of gentrification, displacement, and other manifestations of that crisis to a search for an alternative vision. That vision requires creating housing whose production, distribution, and management is guided by deeply democratic principles, a...
More →

  Engaged Urbanists

Engaged Urbanists is our longest-standing, core working group. It meets twice a month and is built on reviewing works-in-progress that emphasize the porousness of the walls between the academy and the “real” world, scholars and activists, teachers and learners. More →

  Place, Displacement, & The Politics of Housing

As cities change, who gets to stay, and who is displaced? Who decides? Today, we are living globally through an unprecedented and protracted crisis of housing that affects countries in the Global North and Global South alike. As cities have become engines of economic growth, real estate has become more attractive for investment and speculation,...
More →

  Dismantling Racial Capitalism

Dismantling Racial Capitalism creates space to develop and sharpen our understanding of racial capitalism, how it functions, its horrific consequences, and, most importantly, how we can challenge and dismantle it. Our programs convene academics, organizers, policy-makers, students and change-makers for a deeply-rooted examination of how racial capitalism drives inequality, exploitation, and destruction, and how we...
More →

Past Initiatives

  Beyond The Pandemic

The CoVid-19 pandemic has worsened what was already untenable: millions of renters and homeowners are now facing increased housing insecurity, as making rent and mortgage payments has become difficult. The pandemic has laid bare social fault-lines, the precarity of the lives of so many, and the fragility of our social safety net. As we face...
More →

  Urban Humanities and Their Publics

Who speaks for the city? For whom and by whom is scholarship produced? Humanities scholars have increasingly become major caretakers of histories, representations, interpretations, physical designs, and experiences of city life. This has been crucial to create exchanges across disciplines and to provide new understandings and frameworks for processes of urbanization. Too often marginalized in...
More →

  Place, Displacement, & The Politics of Housing

As cities change, who gets to stay, and who is displaced? Who decides? Today, we are living globally through an unprecedented and protracted crisis of housing that affects countries in the Global North and Global South alike. As cities have become engines of economic growth, real estate has become more attractive for investment and speculation,...
More →

  New Urban Politics and the Right To The City

The Right To The City is often a rallying cry and an appealing abstract idea. But how do we enact it? What does it look like in practice? Where can we look for inspiration? In today’s era of fragmented governance and nationalist sentiments, cities have become the beacons of a global, progressive renaissance. In this...
More →

  Municipalism

Within the last few years, political strategies based on building popular power at the local and city level have experienced a notable rise. Examples like Barcelona en Comu and other municipalist confluences in Spain, Ciudad Futura (Rosario, Argentina), Cooperation Jackson (Jackson, Mississippi), Beirut Madinati (Lebanon), Muitas Pela Cidade Que Queremos (Belo Horizonte, Brazil), Nedavimo Beograd...
More →

  Student Organizers

The Urban Democracy Lab Student Organizers are comprised of undergraduate and graduate students, as well as alumni, who are committed to social justice and hope to gain experience meeting and working with dedicated urban scholars and practitioners. This is a leadership development program that supports students in stewarding their own programs and events, navigating the...
More →

  Democratizing the Green City

Green cities present us with a paradox: everyone agrees that our future lies in cities and that these cities need to be greener and more sustainable. But zoom in on any given project and, over and over, the same problem presents itself: too often green progress reinforces social inequality. Greening a place—either by reducing pollution...
More →

  Urban Listeners (2018-2019)

The Urban Listeners working group is composed of oral historians, community organizers, archivists, artists, teachers, and scholars who are dedicated to knowledge-keeping and knowledge-making that acknowledges the profound impact power relations, colonial legacies, identity, and politics have on what we hear about both the past and present. Our group values advocacy and activism, and remains...
More →

  Humanizing Data (2017-2020)

The Humanizing Data working group considers the ways that data connects with people, nonhuman animals, and places throughout New York City. Our group addresses several issues related to data, including what it is (and isn’t) and the ways it has (re)produced systems and experiences of inequality. The group also explores the strategies we can adopt...
More →

  The Politics of Inadequate Housing (2017-2018)

This is an ethnographic research project on substandard housing conditions in New York City. The project examines the persistence of substandard housing in New York through a study of the sociopolitical forces that underpin it. To do so, we look at the forces that shape the behavior of a variety of actors by conducting an...
More →

  Cooper Square Community Land Trust (2017-2019)

The Cooper Square Community Land Trust Community History Project aims to record the personal histories and opinions of residents of the Cooper Square community of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, particularly those involved directly with the Cooper Square Community Land Trust (CSCLT), the Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association (CSMHA), and the Cooper Square Committee (CSC). Through...
More →