University City: A book talk with Professor Laura Wolf-Powers

Laura Wolf-Powers is an Associate Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College CUNY, where she teaches economic development, community planning, and real estate development. She serves on the editorial boards of Metropolitics journal and the Journal of the American Planning Association and as an academic advisor to the Urban Manufacturing Alliance, the Pratt Center for Community Development, and the Western Queens Community Land Trust.

Prof. Wolf-Powers will be speaking about her new book University City: History, Race, & Community in the Era of the Innovation District (Penn Press 2022). The book uses archival and ethnographic research to trace five decades of university-community politics in West Philadelphia's University City neighborhood, examining the conflicting claims on value and space that accompany academic institutions’ sponsorship of innovation-oriented economic redevelopment projects. It analyzes the work of mobilized civic groups to to win policies that help economically insecure families keep a foothold in changing neighborhoods, advocating a reorientation of redevelopment practice around the recognition that, despite their negligible worth in real estate terms, the time, care, and energy people invest in their local environments are precious urban resources.