Cost: 

$20/person for general admission
$10/person for recent graduates (College alumni of the past ten years and graduate alumni of the past five years)
Two complimentary registrations for members of the Alumni Leadership, Chicago, Harper, and Phoenix Societies

Includes program and refreshments

6:00–7:00 p.m. Registration and reception
7:00–8:30 p.m. Presentation and discussion

While the Great Recession affected Americans across all cities and towns, some cities have rebounded more rapidly than others, with lower unemployment rates, stronger housing markets, and a more robust government and nonprofit infrastructure. These differences magnify the existing discrepancies in the strengths of cities’ local safety nets. How much does inequality among US cities affect the everyday experiences of the low-income families trapped in our urban ghettos? Is it now, in fact, much more difficult to escape poverty from some city’s ghettos than others? Using both long-standing and ongoing field research in high-poverty neighborhoods, Mario Luis Small will discuss why being born in the wrong city might be as difficult as being born in the wrong income bracket.

Mario Luis Small (PhD, 2001, Harvard University) is dean of the Division of the Social Sciences and professor of sociology at the University of Chicago. Dean Small is an expert on urban poverty, social capital, personal networks, and the relationship between qualitative and quantitative social science methods. He is the author of Villa Victoria: The Transformation of Social Capital in a Boston Barrio; Unanticipated Gains: Origins of Network Inequality in Everyday Life; and numerous articles and chapters in edited volumes. His honors include the Robert E. Park Award for Best Book, honorable mention for the Mirra Komarovsky Book Award, and the C. Wright Mills Award for best book, the latter two of which he has received twice.

Read Dean Small's op-ed in the Huffington Post, "The Ties That Bind: How Childcare Centers Build Social Capital", and "No Two Ghettos Are Alike" in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Purchase Dean Small’s Unanticipated Gains: Origins of Network Inequality in Everyday Life. A limited number of books will also be available for purchase at the Harper Lecture.

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