The University Ate My Neighborhood

A conversation with urbanist and cultural historian Davarian L. Baldwin, author of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities

Claire Potter sat down with urbanist Davarian L. Baldwin to discuss his new book, In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities (Bold Type Books, 2021), to hash out what these relationships do to reshape our cities....

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The University Ate My Neighborhood

In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower

In this excerpt, Davarian L. Baldwin introduces his new book, The Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities

I never thought a university would foretell the future of our cities. But there I was, on a December afternoon in 2003, stepping out into the brisk South Side air after hours holed away in the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library. I immediately heard chants of protest and saw people ...
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In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower