Regional Spotlight

The location of the Annual Meeting in New York City affords meeting attendees a special opportunity to see interesting sites and discuss political and cultural issues bubbling in this sophisticated, international city. President Frances Fox Piven appointed Lori Minnite (Columbia University) and Phil Kasinitz (City University of New York) to co-chair a local support committee to propose special panels, develop a program of local tours, prepare a restaurant guide, and write special articles for ASA Footnotes

Restaurants [Details]

Restaurant Guide

A special local restaurant guide is being prepared by Lori Minnite (Columbia University) and Michelle Erfer (The New School University), building on the work of Caren Arbeit (Skidmore College) and Pamela Stone (Hunter College) who produced a guide for the 2004 Eastern Sociological Society meeting held in New York City. Each registrant will receive a copy of that guide in the Final Program packet distributed on-site in New York.

Dining and Reservations in New York City

With nearly 25,000 food service operations and over $11 billion in annual sales, New York City's restaurant industry offers a mind-boggling array of choices to the eager diner. The local host committee is preparing a humble guide for ASA conference attendees, as noted above; in the meantime, we would suggest that those who plan to sample some of the city's most popular restaurants book reservations ahead of time. OpenTable, the online booking service (www.opentable.com), provides a convenient means for reserving a table at more than 700 restaurants. The most expensive require reservations up to four weeks in advance, and for all restaurants, it's always best to reserve for large parties. Stay tuned!

Regional Articles in Footnotes [Details]

Use the links below to read special feature articles about the Big Apple that have appeared in ASA's newsletter Footnotes.

Down and Out in New York City by Mitchell Duneier, Princeton University and CUNY Graduate Center, and Patrick Markee, Coalition for the Homeless (May/June 2007)

Paradox and the City: Why the Working Class Has Political Power by Dan Cantor and J.W. Mason (April 2007)

Finding New York City's Culture Through Shopping by Sharon Zukin (March 2007)

Four Trends Shaping the Big Apple by Andrew Beveridge (February 2007)

Regional Spotlight Sessions [Details]


	Ten fascinating sessions look at various aspects of living and working in New York City. Don't miss these opportunities to explore viewpoints.
	The Columbia School of Sociology and the Merton-Lazarsfeld Legacy [Details]

Organizer and Presider:

Craig Calhoun
Social Science Research Council

Panel:

Harriet Zuckerman
Mellon Foundation

Cynthia Fuchs Epstein
Graduate Center
City University of New York

Thomas DiPrete
Columbia University

Extremes of Class Inequality: Children's Lives in Metropolitan New York [Details]

Organizer and Presider:

Julia Wrigley
Graduate Center
City University of New York

Full Circle:

How Mexican Children "Left Behind" Come to Terms with Migration.

Joanna Dreby
Graduate Center
City University of New York

Does It Take a Family or a Village? Buffers and Blockades in Children's Pathways to Adulthood.

Kathleen Gerson and Sarah Damaske
New York University

Toward a Critical Geography of Elite Schooling.

Mitchell Stevens
New York University

Learning to Be an Employer: Children and Caregivers.

Julia Wrigley
Graduate Center
City University of New York

Drawing on ethnographic studies, this panel will address pervasive inequalities in the lives of children - from the affluent to the very poor - in the New York area and will discuss children's responses to them.

The Future of the New York City Labor Movement [Details]

Organizer and Presider:

Josh Freeman
Graduate Center
City University of New York

Panel:

Stanley Aronowitz
Graduate Center
City University of New York

Janice Fine
Rutgers University

Immanuel Ness
Brooklyn College

Discussion:

Ruth Milkman
University of California Los Angeles
-- and --
Ed Ott
New York City Central Labor Council

New York City has the largest labor movement of any city in the U.S., and a brilliant radical past. But today, the movement has stagnated, contributing to an erosion of it?s impressive achievements. This roundtable will consider the strengths and weaknesses of the New York City labor movement, including its response to the changing demographic and occupational structure of the city and new forms of working-class organization. Panelists will address the prospects for a resurgence of labor militancy and what organized labor might do to more effectively further the interests of New York workers.

The Impact of Immigration on Inter-group Relations and Communities of Color in New York [Details]

Organizer and Presider:

Hector Cordero-Guzman
Baruch College
City University of New York

Panel:

Sherri-Ann Butterfield
Rutgers University

Jose Calderon
Pitzer College

John Flateau
Medgar Evers College

David H. Jones
City University of New York

Philip Kasinitz
Graduate Center
City University of New York

Guillermo Linares
Mayor's Office
New York City

The purpose of this panel is to stimulate dialogue and discussion on the relationship between African American\West Indian\African populations and communities, and Hispanic\Latino populations and communities with a focus on how recent migration to New York City has affected relations within and between these various groups. The panel will include a combination of academics and practitioners that will engage the topic from a variety of perspectives.

Is New York City Viable? [Details]

Organizer and Presider:

Saskia Sassen
University of Chicago

Panel:

Diane Davis
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Susan Fainstein
Harvard University

Clara E. Rodriguez
Fordham University

Richard Sennett
London School of Economics

Discussion:

Saskia Sassen
University of Chicago

A mix of conditions are unsettling New York City, both as city and as icon. Almost six years after 9/11 the rebuilding of ground zero has barely begun. The city has one of the highest levels of inequality of any city in the US. A recent count of homeless found far more than had generally been estimated -- over 150,000. The financial markets in New York have been losing investors, listings and market share to London. New York City has gone through hard times before. Each time it has reemerged transformed. The last major transformation was the wealth explosion of the 1980s after the default of the mid-1970s. The panel addresses the city's recent past and current condition from several different angles.

Middle Eastern/Muslim Americans in Metropolitan New York After 9/11 [Details]

Organizers and Presiders:

Anny Bakalian and Mehdi Bozorgmehr
City University of New York

From Backlash to Mobilization.

Mehdi Bozorgmehr
City College and Graduate Center
City University of New York

Anny Bakalian and Colleen Eren
Graduate Center
City University of New York

Comfort Zone:

The Impact of Ethnic Neighborhood on Young American Muslims.

Emily Mahon
Graduate Center

City University of New York Local versus National Identification among Palestinian Americans.

Randa Serhan
Columbia University

The Integration of Iranian Women Immigrants and Exiles.

Mahasti Hashemi
Rutgers University

Discussion:

Pyong Gap Min
Queens College and Graduate Center
City University of New York

On September 11, 2001, New York was the site of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil. The attacks were masterminded by Muslim extremists from the Middle East, resulting in hate crimes and government initiatives against Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans. Since the New York metropolitan area has one of the largest Middle Eastern and Muslim populations in the U.S., this panel will explore the post-911 experiences of these impacted ethnic minorities. The papers are all based on original empirical research.

New York's Art Worlds [Details]

Organizer:

Julia Rothenberg
New School University

Presider:

Vera Zolberg
New School University

Yaddo, or the Artist Colony as Antidote to Exhausting Modernity.

Micki McGee
New York University and
Self-Help, Inc.

Art in Merchandise: The New York Story.

Harvey Molotch
New York University

The Super-Paradigm: Of Art, Chelsea, and the Devitalization of Urban Space.

Julia Rothenberg
New School University

A Brave New World of Design Arts: Navigating Race, Class, and Nation.

Britta Wheeler
The Art Institute of New York City

Discussion:

Vera Zolberg
New School University

Since the United-States' emergence as a global super-power at the end of the Second World War, the New York art scene has played a key in role fostering the nation's image of global dominance on the cultural as well as the financial and political fronts. Today, artists with international reputations can be found in other world-class cities such as London, Paris, Berlin, Los Angeles and Tokyo. And, along with the growing legions of workers in commercial creative industries, most cities in the industrialized world can also boast of a sizable artist community. Nonetheless, New York remains a Mecca for ambitious young artists, critics, curators and collectors and continues to exert significant critical and financial influence in an increasingly globalized art world. Meanwhile, the role of the arts in bolstering the economic health of New York City in the post-industrial urban landscape remains key, while the conditions for the viability of artistic communities becomes increasingly precarious. Presenters in this panel, through a variety of methodologies, theoretical perspectives and objects of analysis will consider various aspects of New York City's past, present and future role as an engine of creative cultural production.

New York's Unique Sociological Archives (co-sponsored with the ASA Section on History of Sociology) [Details]


	Organizer: Lorraine Minnite Barnard College Columbia University New York City is a treasure trove for the historically-minded sociologist. This panel features a seminar with archivists and librarians from several of the city's unique historical and research institutions who will discuss their collections and what sociologists can learn from them.

Public Space in New York: Immigration, Gentrification, Work, and Conflict [Details]

Organizer and Presider:

Gregory Smithsimon
Barnard College
Columbia University

Panel:

Lance Freeman
Columbia University

Aarti Shahani
Families for Freedom

Paul Stoller
Westchester University

Discussion:

Gregory Smithsimon
Barnard College
Columbia University

Public space is often described as critical for democratic participation and threatened by privatization. But its role is much broader. As the work of these panelists demonstrates, public space in New York is also a window into phenomena like gentrification, immigrant repression, and the lives of immigrant entrepreneurs. The panelists thus present the vitality and diversity of New York's contemporary public spaces and pressing research topics in the city.

Cornel West and Kim Hopper on Mitch Duneier's new ethnographic film "Sidewalks" [Details]

Organizer & Presider:

Harvey Molotch
New York University

Panel:

Cornel West
Princeton University

Kim Hopper
Columbia University

Discussion:

Mitchell Duneier
Princeton University and
City University of New York

This panel features a screening of Mitchell Duneier's new ethnographic film, Sidewalk, based on his book about the homeless vendors, scavengers, and panhandlers of Greenwich Village. After the screening, the speakers will make brief commentaries on the issues raised by the film for understanding the contemporary situation of black men, urban ethnography, and homelessness in New York City.

Why Did Crime Decline in New York City? [Details]

Organizer and Presider:

Philip Kasinitz
Graduate Center
City University of New York

Panel:

Michael Jacobson
Vera Institute of Justice

Andrew Karmen
John Jay School of Criminal Justice
City University of New York

David Vlahov
New York Academy of Medicine

The rapid and dramatic decline in crime in New York City since the early 1990's has affected many aspects of life in the City. While in its early years this decline was roughly consistent with national trends, by now the extent and duration of the decline in crime rates makes it clear that the City's experience has been qualitatively different from that of most other large American cities. There is less consensus as to why. Is the decline in crime due primarily to policing practices, rates of incarceration, changing demography, the decline in crack cocaine use, rising immigration, the booming economy of the late 1990's - or some combination of factors? In this session experts will debate why crime went down and how it might be kept down ? as well as the costs of policies that accompanied the decline.