Flint, Ferguson, Baltimore: Henry Louis Taylor Considers their Connections in Washington Post
In "How Flint, Ferguson and Baltimore are all connected," Washington Post columnist Emily Badger speaks with UB urban planning professor Henry Louis Taylor on the structural dynamics of inequity that link recent events in these communities. (Image of water tower in Flint, Mich., courtesy of Washington Post).
Published January 28, 2016 This content is archived.
Urban planning professor Henry Louis Taylor, PhD, weighs in on the bigger issues behind recent calamities in Flint, Ferguson and Baltimore in a provocative article by Washington Post columnist Emily Badger.
"These are the places that are left behind, forgotten," says Taylor in the article. "They're places we've gotten very good at shielding from view."
Recent events in these cities - police violence in Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore, and a man-made public health crisis in Flint, Mich. - are connected by economic inequity and structural racism, according to Taylor.
Read more about the work of Taylor, who directs the School of Architecture and Planning's Center for Urban Studies and its action-based research on community and economic development for distressed urban communities. The center's research initiatives include a series of citizen planning initiatives and comprehensive plans for marginalized neighborhoods in Buffalo, the development of a planning tool for affordable housing in shrinking U.S. cities, and analysis of charitable and faith-based organizations as mobilizers of social capital for the urban poor.