Derek Hyra
Biographic Data
| ID | 2273580 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Derek Hyra |
| GIVEN NAMES | Derek |
| FAMILY NAME | Hyra |
| SIGNATURE | HYRA D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Virginia Tech |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8269-316X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 246 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Evaluating Rent Control Intensity in California Cities, 2010–2019
Localities in the U.S. have adopted rent regulation ordinances of varying strengths. This raises the question: do relatively stronger city-level rent control policies correlate more strongly with tenant outcomes? We conduct a between-city comparison of city-level rent control policies in California between 2010 and 2019 and develop a novel, standardized index of ordinance intensity based on allowable annual rent increases. We find that cities wit…
My Journey, Our Journey to Break Cycles of Racial and Spatial Repression
This is a modified version of the 2025 Presidential Address I delivered at the 95th Eastern Sociological Society Annual Meeting, “Building Solidarity to Break Cycles of Repression.” Due to time constraints during the conference, I was unable to share my intellectual journey. I added this information to contextualize my remarks on the links among slow and sudden violence, cycles of racial and spatial repression, and uprisings. I conclude with sugg…
Special Issue Introduction
Gentrification has been one of the most controversial and elusive concepts in the housing, community development, urban, and public health literatures in the last two decades (Brown-Saracino, 2017
Decolonizing the Green City
The expanding reach of urban greening across the United States and beyond often materially and immaterially impacts communities of color, leading to displacement and decreased access to new urban amenities. While many scholars point to the persistence of racial inequality, we observe the urban greening orthodoxy in urban planning and development as evidencing a deeper strain of environmental injustice bound up in the legacy and continuance of Whi…
Race and the Politics of Deception
Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City
The US Great Recession
The United States experienced the Great Recession between 2007 and 2009 and many American cities and communities are still suffering from its legacy. During the prior period of the early and mid-2000s, many inner city African American communities were experiencing gentrification, driven in part by the real estate bubble that popped in 2007. While much has been written about the institutional and structural causes and consequences of the Great Rec…
Advancing the Future Urban Discourse
The Obama Administration’s Place-Based Initiatives
The Obama administration has orchestrated a cadre of pilot, comprehensive community-style, initiatives known collectively as the Ladders of Opportunity/Promise Zones. These Ladder of Opportunity in
The back-to-the-city movement
While certain US cities are still depopulating, others have experienced a reversal of aggregate out-migration patterns. Some scholars, politicians and real estate boosters celebrate this urban population influx, as it will likely increase property values and municipal tax bases; however, we know little about the social costs associated with the back-to-the-city movement. This study investigates the consequences of the back-to-the-city movement th…
Metropolitan Segregation and the Subprime Lending Crisis
Unsustainable high-cost lending was a major contributor to one of the worst financial crises in U.S. history. While several studies examine individual- and community-level predictors of high-cost lending, little research has tested for the possible causal effect of racial segregation. Using two-stage least squares statistical models, we find evidence that even after controlling for percentage minority, poverty, unemployment, low credit scores, ho…
Home Foreclosures and Community Crime
Objective Aggregate crime rates continue to decline in the United States despite the depth and breadth of the current foreclosure crisis. This trend calls into question conventional wisdom and prior research that suggest a causal, positive relationship between foreclosures and crime. The objective of this article is to consider an alternative argument, that foreclosures and crime are part‐and‐parcel of the same community‐level dynamics, and thus …
Manhattan Projects
Journal Article Manhattan Projects: The Rise and Fall of Urban Renewal in Cold War New York Get access Manhattan Projects: The Rise and Fall of Urban Renewal in Cold War New York. By Samuel Zipp. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. xiv, 469 pp. $34.95, ISBN978-0-19-532874-5.) Derek S. Hyra Derek S. Hyra Virginia Tech Alexandria, Virginia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Vo…
Conceptualizing the New Urban Renewal
In the 1990s and 2000s, inner city neighborhood redevelopment occurred throughout the United States as billions in public and private investments entered impoverished black communities. This revitalization process led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of African-Americans. Based on this circumstance, some scholars suggest that this circumstance was a return to the past urban renewal period (1949-1974). While there have been many case s…
Foreclosures—Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
The New Urban Renewal
Derek S. Hyra's The New Urban Renewal is a valuable interpretation of the current transformation of two iconic black communities. Rather than using his field research to advance one of the classic paradigms of urban community change, Hyra, a University of Chicago-trained social scientist, carefully weaves together an account of multiple forces to explain the emerging “second renaissance” of Harlem and Bronzeville. The global economy and massive f…
Racial Uplift? Intra‐Racial Class Conflict and the Economic Revitalization of Harlem and Bronzeville
The study of revitalizing African American urban neighborhoods is needed to understand how race, class, and politics influence community development. While numerous investigations of urban neighborhoods stress inter‐racial conflict, few explore intra‐racial class discord. Class antagonism within black America is a controversial and debated topic. Several scholars claim that the common experience of racism has led to social and political unity amo…
City Politics and Black Protest
Can metropolitan political systems affect the level of Black-led protest politics? While researchers stress the importance of individual-level socio-economic status, others contend that a city's political landscape is an influential force in determining political engagement.Using a comparative ethnographic approach, this study explores how the distinct political situations in New York City (NYC) and Chicago relate to the proliferation of protest …
The back-to-the-city movement
While certain US cities are still depopulating, others have experienced a reversal of aggregate out-migration patterns. Some scholars, politicians and real estate boosters celebrate this urban population influx, as it will likely increase property values and municipal tax bases; however, we know little about the social costs associated with the back-to-the-city movement. This study investigates the consequences of the back-to-the-city movement th…
Conceptualizing the New Urban Renewal
In the 1990s and 2000s, inner city neighborhood redevelopment occurred throughout the United States as billions in public and private investments entered impoverished black communities. This revitalization process led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of African-Americans. Based on this circumstance, some scholars suggest that this circumstance was a return to the past urban renewal period (1949-1974). While there have been many case s…
The US Great Recession
The United States experienced the Great Recession between 2007 and 2009 and many American cities and communities are still suffering from its legacy. During the prior period of the early and mid-2000s, many inner city African American communities were experiencing gentrification, driven in part by the real estate bubble that popped in 2007. While much has been written about the institutional and structural causes and consequences of the Great Rec…
The New Urban Renewal
Derek S. Hyra's The New Urban Renewal is a valuable interpretation of the current transformation of two iconic black communities. Rather than using his field research to advance one of the classic paradigms of urban community change, Hyra, a University of Chicago-trained social scientist, carefully weaves together an account of multiple forces to explain the emerging “second renaissance” of Harlem and Bronzeville. The global economy and massive f…
Racial Uplift? Intra‐Racial Class Conflict and the Economic Revitalization of Harlem and Bronzeville
The study of revitalizing African American urban neighborhoods is needed to understand how race, class, and politics influence community development. While numerous investigations of urban neighborhoods stress inter‐racial conflict, few explore intra‐racial class discord. Class antagonism within black America is a controversial and debated topic. Several scholars claim that the common experience of racism has led to social and political unity amo…
Home Foreclosures and Community Crime
Objective Aggregate crime rates continue to decline in the United States despite the depth and breadth of the current foreclosure crisis. This trend calls into question conventional wisdom and prior research that suggest a causal, positive relationship between foreclosures and crime. The objective of this article is to consider an alternative argument, that foreclosures and crime are part‐and‐parcel of the same community‐level dynamics, and thus …
Foreclosures—Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Advancing the Future Urban Discourse
Racial Uplift? Intra‐Racial Class Conflict and the Economic Revitalization of Harlem and Bronzeville
The study of revitalizing African American urban neighborhoods is needed to understand how race, class, and politics influence community development. While numerous investigations of urban neighborhoods stress inter‐racial conflict, few explore intra‐racial class discord. Class antagonism within black America is a controversial and debated topic. Several scholars claim that the common experience of racism has led to social and political unity amo…
City Politics and Black Protest
Can metropolitan political systems affect the level of Black-led protest politics? While researchers stress the importance of individual-level socio-economic status, others contend that a city's political landscape is an influential force in determining political engagement.Using a comparative ethnographic approach, this study explores how the distinct political situations in New York City (NYC) and Chicago relate to the proliferation of protest …
The New Urban Renewal
Derek S. Hyra's The New Urban Renewal is a valuable interpretation of the current transformation of two iconic black communities. Rather than using his field research to advance one of the classic paradigms of urban community change, Hyra, a University of Chicago-trained social scientist, carefully weaves together an account of multiple forces to explain the emerging “second renaissance” of Harlem and Bronzeville. The global economy and massive f…
Foreclosures—Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Home Foreclosures and Community Crime
Objective Aggregate crime rates continue to decline in the United States despite the depth and breadth of the current foreclosure crisis. This trend calls into question conventional wisdom and prior research that suggest a causal, positive relationship between foreclosures and crime. The objective of this article is to consider an alternative argument, that foreclosures and crime are part‐and‐parcel of the same community‐level dynamics, and thus …
Manhattan Projects
Journal Article Manhattan Projects: The Rise and Fall of Urban Renewal in Cold War New York Get access Manhattan Projects: The Rise and Fall of Urban Renewal in Cold War New York. By Samuel Zipp. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. xiv, 469 pp. $34.95, ISBN978-0-19-532874-5.) Derek S. Hyra Derek S. Hyra Virginia Tech Alexandria, Virginia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Vo…
Conceptualizing the New Urban Renewal
In the 1990s and 2000s, inner city neighborhood redevelopment occurred throughout the United States as billions in public and private investments entered impoverished black communities. This revitalization process led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of African-Americans. Based on this circumstance, some scholars suggest that this circumstance was a return to the past urban renewal period (1949-1974). While there have been many case s…
Metropolitan Segregation and the Subprime Lending Crisis
Unsustainable high-cost lending was a major contributor to one of the worst financial crises in U.S. history. While several studies examine individual- and community-level predictors of high-cost lending, little research has tested for the possible causal effect of racial segregation. Using two-stage least squares statistical models, we find evidence that even after controlling for percentage minority, poverty, unemployment, low credit scores, ho…
Advancing the Future Urban Discourse
The Obama Administration’s Place-Based Initiatives
The Obama administration has orchestrated a cadre of pilot, comprehensive community-style, initiatives known collectively as the Ladders of Opportunity/Promise Zones. These Ladder of Opportunity in
The back-to-the-city movement
While certain US cities are still depopulating, others have experienced a reversal of aggregate out-migration patterns. Some scholars, politicians and real estate boosters celebrate this urban population influx, as it will likely increase property values and municipal tax bases; however, we know little about the social costs associated with the back-to-the-city movement. This study investigates the consequences of the back-to-the-city movement th…
Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City
The US Great Recession
The United States experienced the Great Recession between 2007 and 2009 and many American cities and communities are still suffering from its legacy. During the prior period of the early and mid-2000s, many inner city African American communities were experiencing gentrification, driven in part by the real estate bubble that popped in 2007. While much has been written about the institutional and structural causes and consequences of the Great Rec…
Race and the Politics of Deception
Decolonizing the Green City
The expanding reach of urban greening across the United States and beyond often materially and immaterially impacts communities of color, leading to displacement and decreased access to new urban amenities. While many scholars point to the persistence of racial inequality, we observe the urban greening orthodoxy in urban planning and development as evidencing a deeper strain of environmental injustice bound up in the legacy and continuance of Whi…
Special Issue Introduction
Gentrification has been one of the most controversial and elusive concepts in the housing, community development, urban, and public health literatures in the last two decades (Brown-Saracino, 2017
My Journey, Our Journey to Break Cycles of Racial and Spatial Repression
This is a modified version of the 2025 Presidential Address I delivered at the 95th Eastern Sociological Society Annual Meeting, “Building Solidarity to Break Cycles of Repression.” Due to time constraints during the conference, I was unable to share my intellectual journey. I added this information to contextualize my remarks on the links among slow and sudden violence, cycles of racial and spatial repression, and uprisings. I conclude with sugg…
Evaluating Rent Control Intensity in California Cities, 2010–2019
Localities in the U.S. have adopted rent regulation ordinances of varying strengths. This raises the question: do relatively stronger city-level rent control policies correlate more strongly with tenant outcomes? We conduct a between-city comparison of city-level rent control policies in California between 2010 and 2019 and develop a novel, standardized index of ordinance intensity based on allowable annual rent increases. We find that cities wit…
Political science (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies (11 works) · Politics (9 works) · Economics (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Economic growth (7 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · Gentrification (6 works)