Urbanization and Property Relations in Mexico City
This project draws on historical records, interviews, and participant observation to understand the evolution of property relations in a cluster of neighborhoods in southern Mexico City. The selected neighborhoods represent two common neighborhood forms in the city, each with a distinct organization of property relations: pueblo originarios and former informal settlements. The pueblos originarios ("original villages") are neighborhoods that existed as agricultural villages prior to Mexico City's expansion over the past century, and the informal settlements were first established by rural migrants arriving in the 1960s and 1970s. I focus on two pueblos originarios and two former informal settlements in the borough of Coyoacán.
As Mexico City urbanized over the twentieth century, I trace how poor residents of this area on the urban periphery became unlikely property owners through the non-market allocation of landed property via redistributive state policy. Subsequently, the incursion of market relations and the intensification of capital-driven development has altered social relations in the now centrally located neighborhoods. I examine how state policy opened collective pathways to homeownership and, in the process, constituted new social categories; how property market regulation that responds to those categories has naturalized new group identities; how residents have organized their livelihood strategies around their status as homeowners; and how intensifying gentrification pressures have sparked struggles between competing conceptualizations of property's value and organizing among residents to defend neighborhood-specific "traditional" understandings of legitimate and illegitimate uses of property.
As Mexico City urbanized over the twentieth century, I trace how poor residents of this area on the urban periphery became unlikely property owners through the non-market allocation of landed property via redistributive state policy. Subsequently, the incursion of market relations and the intensification of capital-driven development has altered social relations in the now centrally located neighborhoods. I examine how state policy opened collective pathways to homeownership and, in the process, constituted new social categories; how property market regulation that responds to those categories has naturalized new group identities; how residents have organized their livelihood strategies around their status as homeowners; and how intensifying gentrification pressures have sparked struggles between competing conceptualizations of property's value and organizing among residents to defend neighborhood-specific "traditional" understandings of legitimate and illegitimate uses of property.
Neighborhood Improvement Districts in Milwaukee
This project is a multi-method study of Milwaukee’s Neighborhood Improvement Districts (NIDs). The NID program allows residential property owners to form special assessment districts in their neighborhoods. The additional property assessments are collected by the city and disbursed back to a NID board composed of residents, who can use the funds for community improvement initiatives of their choosing. The NID program is modeled after Business Improvement Districts, which were pioneered as a remedy for the decline of central business districts during the 1980s and are now a standard feature of commercial corridors in urban and suburban centers. I use historical records, policy documents, interviews, and participant observation to understand how the NID program has been implemented by residents and property owners across different neighborhoods in Milwaukee.
Preliminary findings suggest that NIDs empower neighborhood homeowners—who are often supported by existing community-based organizations (CBOs)—with local governance powers. The local histories of property, as well as the meanings attached to homeownership, shape how NIDs are used. Residents have harnessed the coercive power of the municipal government to address a wide range of community concerns, such as forcing reinvestment by absentee landlords, strengthening neighborhood social cohesion, and reconstituting community governance. This project builds on scholarship about the privatization of urban governance and examines the unintended and often surprising effects of anti-poverty urban policy.
Preliminary findings suggest that NIDs empower neighborhood homeowners—who are often supported by existing community-based organizations (CBOs)—with local governance powers. The local histories of property, as well as the meanings attached to homeownership, shape how NIDs are used. Residents have harnessed the coercive power of the municipal government to address a wide range of community concerns, such as forcing reinvestment by absentee landlords, strengthening neighborhood social cohesion, and reconstituting community governance. This project builds on scholarship about the privatization of urban governance and examines the unintended and often surprising effects of anti-poverty urban policy.
Historical Mexico-U.S. Immigration Data
This project draws on a novel dataset that I constructed with Jenna Nobles (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Peter Catron (University of Washington), and María Vignau-Loría (University of Washington). To build this dataset, we digitized a representative sample of administrative records that were used to collect information on individuals who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border at official ports of entry between 1910-1952. Border manifests include information about individuals such as perceived skin tone, height, occupation, literacy, place of birth, place of last residence, intended destination, purpose of trip, etc. We then link these individuals to their 1930 and 1940 U.S. Census records to create a longitudinal dataset that tracks individuals from their entry in the U.S. through settlement decades later.
In the first of several papers using this data, we examine the role of skin tone as a source of intra-group difference that stratifies outcomes among Mexican immigrants in the early twentieth century. Using at-entry characteristics to predict income in 1940, we find that—in line with dominant assimilation theories—standard measures of capital are associated with within-group differences in attainment. However, we also find that perceived skin tone was a source of within-group stratification: being perceived as having darker skin is associated with lower subsequent economic attainment compared to those with lighter skin. Furthermore, we find that these patterns vary across contexts such that skin tone had a greater effect in Texas, while standard measures of skill had stronger effects in California. Taken together, we argue that while standard measures of assimilation typically predict later outcomes, the stratifying effects of skin tone has been a long-run feature of Mexican immigrant history. (Working Paper available on SocArXiv)
In the first of several papers using this data, we examine the role of skin tone as a source of intra-group difference that stratifies outcomes among Mexican immigrants in the early twentieth century. Using at-entry characteristics to predict income in 1940, we find that—in line with dominant assimilation theories—standard measures of capital are associated with within-group differences in attainment. However, we also find that perceived skin tone was a source of within-group stratification: being perceived as having darker skin is associated with lower subsequent economic attainment compared to those with lighter skin. Furthermore, we find that these patterns vary across contexts such that skin tone had a greater effect in Texas, while standard measures of skill had stronger effects in California. Taken together, we argue that while standard measures of assimilation typically predict later outcomes, the stratifying effects of skin tone has been a long-run feature of Mexican immigrant history. (Working Paper available on SocArXiv)