Uppsala Forum Guest Lecture: “Engaging the Cycle of Segregation: Folded Map, Don’t Go and Other Adventures”

In the Cycle of Segregation, my co-author Kyle Crowder and I offer an innovative framework to explain the persistent pattern of racial residential segregation that has plagued U.S. cities like Chicago for decades. Using the housing search process as a lens, we unpack how economics, preferences, discrimination, social networks, lived experiences, and the media—laid down upon the foundation of segregation cemented by decades of racist housing policies and practices—has resulted in a self-perpetuating system that translates into the deeply ingrained racial inequities that we see in Chicago and many cities throughout the United States, today. In this talk, I provide the overview of our argument and then describe the ways in which I have sought to extend the impact of my research on segregation outside the halls of academia through my partnership with Chicago-based social justice artist Tonika Lewis Johnson, creator of the renowned Folded Map Project.