Author's Blog: The migration-development nexus in local immigration policy: Baltimore City and beyond

This is an author-produced blog post to introduce upcoming Urban Affairs Review articles. When this article is available in OnlineFirst, a link will be included.

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Felipe A. Filomeno

http://globalstudies.umbc.edu/core-faculty/#felipe

Challenging the plenary power of national governments over immigration, local governments have increasingly engaged in the control of immigration and in the integration of immigrants in host communities. Because most immigrants live in urban areas, local immigration policies are an important piece of the governance of international migration. They can affect international migration flows, the implementation of national immigration policies, and immigrants’ access to employment, housing and public services. In “The migration-development nexus in local immigration policy: Baltimore City and the Hispanic diaspora”, I offer a theory of local immigration policy that emphasizes the developmental efforts of local governments and immigrant communities.

Author's Blog: Ignorance Is Bliss: Information Sources and Attitudes about School Choices in New Orleans

This is an author-produced blog post to introduce upcoming Urban Affairs Review articles. This article is available in OnlineFirst.

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J. Celeste Lay
www.jcelestelay.com.

In the last 20 years, school choice options have proliferated in many cities and states. No city exemplifies this move to school choice more than New Orleans. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, school reformers dismantled the low-performing school district and replaced it primarily with autonomous charter schools. As of 2014, over 90% of its public school students were in a charter school – the highest proportion for a major city in the nation. In New Orleans, there are no default neighborhood schools, meaning that parents must apply for admission and select a school for their children.

In this system, the information needs are high so that parents can understand the range of options and how to effectively express their preferences in a new and ever-changing choice process. This paper examines not only which sources of information parents are most reliant on, but also whether those who rely on more objective sources are more satisfied with their choices and more likely to enroll their children in higher performing schools than those who rely on sources with inherent biases

Author's Blog: State dominance in urban redevelopment: beyond gentrification in urban China

This is an author-produced blog post to introduce upcoming Urban Affairs Review articles. This article is available, for free, in OnlineFirst.
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Dr. Fulong Wu
http://iris.ucl.ac.uk/research/personal?upi=FWUXX57

     Gaojiabang was a dilapidated but bustling ‘urban village’ in Shanghai. It was a residual rural village converted into an urban neighbourhood, but the development was incomplete because the land acquisition was not entirely ‘nationalised’ by state industrial projects. After the closure of state-owned enterprises, the place became an enclave for rural migrants because there are large supermarkets nearby for them to conveniently go to work. Now, Gaojiabang is being redeveloped into an innovation office park, characterised by super blocks and high-rise office buildings. Is this gentrification? The original definition mainly refers to a London-originated residential change from the working class to middle class living. Later, the phenomenon has been studied extensively in New York and other places in the world. Neil Smith’s (2002) seminal research on gentrification profoundly extended its connotation from merely a change of residential use to ‘a global urban strategy’, suggesting that ‘sporadic and quaint gentrification’ under the liberal urban policy has been replaced by revanchist urbanism, which purposely promotes land use changes. Subsequently, ‘global gentrifications’ have been studied in the world, particularly by Loretta Lees and her colleagues.