Davarian L Baldwin - In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities

Davarian Baldwin is one of the most important urban historians and cultural critics we have today. In his new book, In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities, Baldwin brings his incisive insights and analysis to bear in a devastating critique of our dated and quaint notions of universities and colleges as egalitarian sites of learning and cultural production. Baldwin unmasks UniverCities as growth machines, unleashing gentrification, stewarding large police forces, cheating tax coffers while exploiting low wage Black and Brown labor throughout the campus. Deeply researched and forcefully written, Baldwin cracks open new debates about the complicated roles of these institutions of higher education and the cities they call home.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership

An unflinching and comprehensive look at how capital has reached its talons into every facet of our lives, from the halls of our elite universities to the street corners of our local communities. A good read for anyone interested in the depressing reality of universities today, a must-read for anyone interested in envisioning a more equitable future for education and city life.

P. E. Moskowitz, author of How to Kill a City

Insightful, compelling, and timely. In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower unveils a widely neglected aspect of American history: the role of higher education in shaping American cities. This book lays the groundwork for the role of universities in creating equitable and just cities.

Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Awardwinning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist

Classes with professors and students are now a minor side business on college and university campuses with the economic and political power to reshape cities. One of the nations foremost urban historians, Davarian Baldwin reveals how these institutions have acquired massive financial and real estate holdings and leveraged them to displace vulnerable communities, control public access to essential services, define progress, and, even, command their own police forces. This brilliant study shows that higher education continues to thrive off the injustices that plague our society.

Craig Steven Wilder, author of Ebony & Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of Americas Universities