A part of the Thomas Scott Seminar series

About the seminar

In recent decades, American suburbs have undergone a so-called renaissance as multiple forces have transformed them into denser urban landscapes. Yet at the same time, suburban racial diversity, immigration, and poverty rates have surged. In this talk, Dr. Lung Amam will discuss her new book, The Right to Suburbia: Combating Gentrification on the Urban Edge. The book investigates how marginalized communities in the suburbs of Washington, DC—one of the most intensely gentrifying metropolitan regions in the United States—have battled the uneven costs and benefits of redevelopment.
 
Dr. Lung-Amam narrates the efforts of activists, community groups, and political leaders fighting for communities' "right to suburbia"—that is, their right to stay put and benefit from new neighborhood investments. Revealing the far-reaching impacts of state-led redevelopment, The Right to Suburbia shows how patterns of unequal, racialized development and displacement are being produced and reproduced in suburbs—and how communities are fighting back.

Presenter bio

Willow Lung-Amam, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park. At UMD, she serves as Director of Community Development at the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education, Director of the Urban Equity Collaborative, and Director of the Small Business Anti-Displacement Network. Dr. Lung-Amam’s research focuses on suburban poverty, racial segregation, immigration, gentrification, redevelopment politics, and neighborhood opportunity. She is the author of The Right to Suburbia: Combating Gentrification on the Urban Edge and Trespassers? Asian American and the Battle for Suburbia. Her research has appeared in popular media outlets, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, National Public Radio, New Republic, Bloomberg’s CityLab, and Al Jazeera. Dr. Lung-Amam holds nonresident fellowships at the Urban Institute’s Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center and the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies program.

About the Thomas Scott Seminar Series

Thomas Scott was professor of political science at the University of Minnesota from 1962 until his retirement in 2009. For more than 30 years he was director of CURA. Under his leadership CURA initiated a number of community-based research programs and engaged with partners across the Twin Cities metropolitan area and throughout the State of Minnesota. Many of those programs continue today and represent the foundation of CURA's current work. This lecture series is designed to honor that legacy by bringing in scholars from across the country who practice community-based research to talk about their work and to engage with audiences here.