'Uneven Production of Space in the Rust Belt: Economic Development and Divided Urban Space in Buffalo NY'

Background

The economic recovery since the Great Recession of 2008 has been weak nationwide. It has been weaker in the Rust Belt. Buffalo, the focus of this presentation, resembles the Rust Belt in many respects as it suffers from weak wage growth, fiscally troubled local governments, segregated housing market, continuing population loss etc.
However, it deviates from the rest of the Rust Belt in some respects thanks to being part of the New York State, the second in the country in terms of its economic size with a tight grip on the finance sector downstate.
 

Such in-between status of Buffalo makes it an ideal place to assess the dynamics of recovery and expose its weaknesses and strengths.
 

This presentation will first provide a closer look at certain sectors to show how variegated the recovery was and how disproportionate its effects were on the ground. 
Theorizing this variation on the ground as uneven production of space in Buffalo,
I will argue that such uneven recovery, which was closely linked to the pre-Recession social and economic ills of the Rust Belt, has become a key characteristic of economic development in the U.S. today. 

About the speaker

Evren Dincer holds a BA in Sociology and MA in Modern Turkish History. Both degrees are acquired from Bogazici University in Istanbul. He earned his PhD in Development Sociology from Cornell University in 2016.
His dissertation titled "The Reindustrialization of the U.S.: An Ethnography of Auto Workers in the Industrial Rust Belt" explored the impact of the 2008 recession on the shop floor in the radically restructured auto industry. He currently teaches sociology at Uludag University in Turkey.