CPRC scholars in our Urbanism and Neighborhoods primary research area group examine neighborhood change, including impacts on population health, producing original research as well as datasets that are a vital a resource for CPRC affiliates and others doing NIH-supported work on spatial approaches to health. Longitudinal analysis of health and well-being is a focus of several affiliates, who collaborate on two panel studies of representative samples of NYC residents with a focus on poverty, disadvantage, health, and well-being. Creating new data on neighborhood characteristics is another focus; affiliates created a web application – the “Computer Aided Neighborhood Visual Assessment System” (CANVAS) which implements neighborhood audit studies via Google Street View. In addition, affiliates have created two datasets, available to collaborators at CPRC, which provide fine-grained details on how urban form has changed over the past 30+ years.
Leadership
Gerard Torrats-Espinosa is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Columbia University.
His research draws from the literatures on urban sociology, stratification, and criminology, and it focuses on understanding how the spatial organization of the American stratification system creates and reproduces inequalities. His current research agenda investigates how the neighborhood context, particularly the experience of community violence, determines the life chances of children; how social capital and social organization emerge and evolve in spatial contexts; and how place and geography structure educational and economic opportunity in America and elsewhere.
His work has been published in numerous academic journals, including the American Sociological Review, the Journal of Urban Economics, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Gerard holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University and a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University.
Angela Simms is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Urban Studies. Her research examines how legacy and contemporary market and government processes in metropolitan areas shape racial inequality, with particular focus on the suburban Black middle class. Angela’s academic articles, published in the journal Phylon, include: (1) “The Veil of Racial Residential Segregation in the 21st Century: The Suburban Black Middle Class and Pursuit of Racial Equity”; and (2) “Racial Residential Segregation and School Choice: How a Market-based Policy for K-12 Access Creates a ‘Parenting Tax’ for Black Parents.” She also has extensive public policy experience. Before academia, she was a Presidential Management Fellow and legislative analyst for seven years at the federal government agency the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) within the Executive Office of the U.S. President, serving in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama Administrations. At OMB, Angela managed the clearance process for, edited, and approved policy documents the Justice Department submitted to Congress to ensure consistency with the President’s overall policy agenda. She completed her PhD in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania in May 2019. Angela holds a master's degree in public policy from the University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor’s in government from the College of William and Mary. She was born and raised in Woodbridge, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C.