The Urban Affairs Association (UAA), the international professional association for urban scholars, researchers and public service professionals, convened its 49th Annual Conference in Los Angeles, April 24-27, 2019. More than 1,000 participants, representing universities, research institutions, and non-profit, public, and private sector organizations, from around the world, met to discuss current issues impacting urban populations and places. Conference participants represented institutions from North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Local sponsors for the event included:
- The University of California, Los Angeles | Luskin School of Public Affairs
- The University of California, Irvine | Urban Planning and Public Policy
- California State University, Los Angeles | Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs
- The University of California, Los Angeles | Department of Public Policy | Institute on Inequality and Democracy | Latino Policy and Politics Initiative
During the conference, awards were presented in recognition of outstanding scholarship and service. Among those honored was Stacey Sutton (University of Illinois at Chicago). Sutton received an honorable mention for the Best Conference Paper Award(for a paper presented in 2018 at the UAA Toronto conference). Her paper was titled: “Cooperative Cities: Municipal Support for Worker Cooperatives in the United States”. The award is sponsored by Routledge |Taylor and Francis, the official publisher of the Journal of Urban Affairs.
Award Committee Assessment:
“The Committee recognizes “Cooperative Cities: Municipal Support for Worker Cooperatives in the United States” as a foundational paper that lays the groundwork for more research about cooperatives. It moves the discussion into nuanced explanations about how institutional support and change that can open up spaces to build future employment and economic development alternatives that create better conditions for workers, especially but not only for low-income workers in communities of color. The Committee also recognizes the paper’s contribution to filling a critical knowledge gap, providing a unique roadmap for future research in this subject area, and its relevance to policy and practice.”
Award Committee:
Renia Ehrenfeucht, Committee Chair (University of New Mexico), Daniel Bliss (Illinois Institute of Technology), Li Fang (Florida State University), John Lauermann (City University of New York-Medgar Evers College), and Drew Westberg (Coe Collage)
Award Winner:
Stacey Sutton earned a joint PhD in Urban Planning & Policy and Sociology from Rutgers University, and an MBA from New York University. She is an Assistant Professor in the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs (CUPPA) and Faculty Fellow in the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy (IRRPP) at the University of Illinois – Chicago. Prior to joining UIC in 2015, she was on the faculty at Columbia University and directed the Community & Capital Action Research Lab. She has published both scholarly and applied research on worker-owned cooperatives, the solidarity economy, gentrification and racial transition, Black-owned business and neighborhood change, neighborhood retail dynamics, and disparate effects of place-based policy and planning. She has been a consultant to the Aspen Institute, Roundtable on Community Change, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation and Atlantic Philanthropies. She has served as an advisor on mayoral and gubernatorial campaigns in Chicago and Illinois and provided community planning support to organizations in New York City, Chicago, and New Orleans.
