The Urban Affairs Association (UAA) is the international professional organization for urban scholars, researchers, policy analysts, and public service professionals.
UAA is dedicated to creating interdisciplinary spaces for engaging in intellectual and practical discussions about urban life. Through theoretical, empirical, and action-oriented research, the UAA fosters diverse activities to understand and shape a more just and equitable urban world.
(Mission Statement, adopted March 12, 2010)
UAA began in the context of the 1960s. In the aftermath of turbulent summers of social unrest in America’s urban centers, a wave of initiatives was launched to address the compelling problems of cities. One distinct set of efforts involving urban researchers was funded by the Ford Foundation. The foundation’s efforts had two primary objectives:
(1) to promote research on a wide range of urban problems by scholars from a variety of disciplines, and
(2) to encourage closer contact between university scholars and city decision-makers in order that research results could be directly applied to the ills of the city.
One outgrowth of the grants made to various universities and colleges was the development of urban research and outreach centers. Some of the directors of these centers formed a group that became known as the Council of University Institutes for Urban Affairs (CUIUA), later renamed the Urban Affairs Association.
UAA has a long tradition of:
The Urban Affairs Association is a 501c3 non-profit, and all donations are tax deductible.
