Urban Poverty and the City


For the first time in human history, more people today live in cities than in rural areas. In a generation, over 70% of the world is expected to be urbanized. Urban sociology, then, is more important now than ever before.  Focusing on topics such as urban poverty and slums, wealth and gated communities, neighborhood change and neighborhood effects, housing and residential mobility, and community life and city politics, this research cluster focuses on the inner-workings of cities and urban life.

The department sponsors the Urban Theory and Data Lab.

Affiliated Graduate Students

News related to Urban Poverty & the City

Nathan Glazer

Remembering Nathan Glazer

February 22, 2019
Nathan Glazer, Professor of Education and Social Structure, Emeritus, died on Saturday at his home in Cambridge, at the age of 95.  Professor Glazer was an influential sociologist, public intellectual, and dear colleague in our Department, and he will be deeply missed.... Read more about Remembering Nathan Glazer
W.E.B. Du Bois

Celebrating Du Bois October 25-27

October 25, 2018

The Department of Sociology at Harvard University is hosting a three-day symposium from October 25-27, 2018 in honor and celebration of W.E.B. Du Bois's 150th birthday.  Ahead of the conference Dean Lawrence Bobo discusses the vast intellectual legacy of the author, activist, and first African-American to earn a Harvard doctorate.  See ...

Read more about Celebrating Du Bois October 25-27
Michele Lamont stands in front of a lecturn

Faculty Spotlight: Lamont Presidential Lecture out in American Sociological Review

June 10, 2018

Michèle Lamont, Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies, Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies, served as the 108th president of the American Sociological Association in 2016-17. Her term took an unexpected turn with the election of Donald Trump in November 2016: it befell on her to take a leadership role in defending the professional interests of sociologists and the conditions for academic freedom.... Read more about Faculty Spotlight: Lamont Presidential Lecture out in American Sociological Review