Kevin T Smiley
Biographic Data
| ID | 235895 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kevin T Smiley |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kevin T |
| FAMILY NAME | Smiley |
| SIGNATURE | SMILEY K T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Louisiana State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1856-6590 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 58 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Local Social Capital, Disaster Housing Damage, and Mental Health: Insights from Hurricane Harvey
Community-level social capital has been theorized to shape mental health, particularly in disaster contexts, but methodological complexities hamper prior studies. Pairing zip-code-level data on social capital from Opportunity Insights with repeated cross-sectional health survey data before and after Hurricane Harvey in Houston, Texas, we examine how local social capital moderated the mental health consequences of disaster housing damage. We first…
Climate change and federal aid disbursements after Hurricane Harvey: An extreme event attribution analysis
The role climate change plays in increasing the burden placed on governments and insurers to pay for recovery has not been extensively explored and is the focus of this study. This study examines the impacts of climate change attributed flooding on federal disaster aid disbursement in Harris County, Texas following Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Our approach uses flood models to estimate the amount of flood damages attributable and not attributable to…
Environmental attitudes as a hegemonic discourse? Towards decolonial epistemologies of environmental orientations
Overlooked Realities: Reimagining “Home” and “House” Among Women Domestic Workers in India
Domestic workers (DWs) are integral to the daily lives of a significant portion of India's urban population, with an estimated 3.9 million individuals employed in domestic roles in urban areas, mostly women. This article explores the perceptions of home, house, and safe spaces among migrant women DWs in Delhi. Through in-depth interviews, it delves into their lived experiences as both breadwinners and survivors of domestic violence, revealing tha…
Comparing public expectations with local planning efforts to mitigate coastal hazards: A case study in the city of New Orleans, USA
Inequalities and interrelations: The sociology of disasters at a new crossroads
While the sociology of disasters was slow to incorporate the study of inequality in analyses, recent research in the field has centered the study of inequality. Powered by changing empirical terrain in the form of climate change and by theoretically engagement with other sociological subfields, our article showcases how this research analyzes inequality by tracing three research motifs of scale, time, and feedbacks. Using a data set of nearly 200…
Being green in a green capital: Assessing drivers of pro-environmental behaviors in Copenhagen
Examining the Relationship Between Racialized Poverty Segregation and Hazardous Industrial Facilities in the U.S. Over Time
Scholars interested in understanding the unequal exposure to environmental harms by race and class have often relied on urban sociological theory. Specifically, the argument that the outmigration of middle-class Whites and African Americans from America’s industrial areas, and the decline in manufacturing employment in these communities, concentrated minority poverty around industrial sites. These nested, community-level, processes have not yet b…
Multi-scalar and multi-dimensional conceptions of social capital and mental health impacts after disaster: The case of Hurricane Harvey
While much research investigates how social capital relates to mental health after disasters, less work employs a multi-scalar, multi-dimensional social capital framework. This study applies such a construct to an analysis of novel survey data of approximately 1,000 rural and urban Texans after Hurricane Harvey struck the United States in August 2017. On the individual level, it finds that greater social support is linked to fewer mental health i…
Big city, little worries? Little city, big worries? How immigration levels and city size shape safety perceptions in urban Europe
Metropolitan Manufacturing Decline and Environmental Inequalities in Industrial Air Pollution in the United States
The changing manufacturing economy has received scant attention in research on environmental inequalities, even though manufacturing work in the United States has dropped precipitously since the mid-20th century. I integrate manufacturing decline in metropolitan areas into the study of environmental inequality by using data on industrial air pollution in 1990, 2000, and 2010. I test to see if an indicator of change in the number of manufacturing …
A spirit of urban capitalism: Market cities, people cities, and cultural justifications
Diverse urban theories discuss how economic processes shape conceptions of a city, but less research focuses on how pragmatic situations of urban life contribute to the characterisation of cities. We argue that pragmatic justifications reify socially constructed meanings of cities by creating a ‘spirit of urban capitalism.’ This framework conceives of two spirits: the market city, which aligns with neoliberal assumptions, and the people city, whi…
Social inequalities in flooding inside and outside of floodplains during Hurricane Harvey
While previous research often finds flood impacts outside of conventional flood risk zones such as FEMA’s 100-year floodplain maps, we have less of a sense of the social and demographic composition of the areas outside of floodplains that experience these impacts, even though social inequalities in flood risk and impacts more broadly is well-documented in the United States. Using data on 100-year floodplains, flood impacts, socio-demographic char…
Race and affluence shape spatio-temporal urbanization trends in Greater Houston, 1997 to 2016
Urban Europeans' viewpoints on immigrants in the city: Re-considering how group threat operates across national and urban contexts
Do Urban Europeans Trust Their Fellow City Dwellers? Immigration, Group Threat, and Intergroup Contact in 63 European Cities
As societies become more diverse, especially with inflows of immigrants, some research finds lowered social trust as an inclusive integration eludes countries, cities, and neighborhoods. But previous research finds this diversity–trust link to be highly variable across studies and in particular across geographic scales. One under-studied scale is that of cities, even though trust is essential to facilitating intergroup contact and because cities …
The Urban Commons: How Data and Technology Can Rebuild Our Communities
Market Cities, People Cities: The Shape of Our Urban Future
“Sewage is not sexy” (p. 38). Without getting caught up in the social construction of evaluative judgements and their gendered antecedents as to what is or is not sexy, we can safely accept this statement as true. Despite its lack of aesthetic appeal, however, how cities handle waste—from human and other animal excrement to the bodies they leave behind when they die—is among the most vital decisions for creating sanitary and healthy living enviro…
Social Capital and Industrial Air Pollution in Metropolitan America
Large disparities in industrial air pollution exist between metropolitan areas in the United States, but we have little measurable sense of what shapes this inequality. Using data on industrial air pollution and social capital organizations, I show how metropolitan areas higher in “connected” social capital – where members have social ties that extend to other organizations in a metropolitan area – are associated with less pollution. Conversely, …
A Polluting Creed: Religion and Environmental Inequality in the United States
Research on religion and the environment primarily focuses how religion shapes environmental attitudes, but this leaves aside how this connection links to observable levels of pollution. This article outlines three elements by which religion and environmental inequality are related: the cumulative effect of religious worldviews, free market outlooks held by some religious adherents, and the bridging or bonding character of social ties of religiou…
Disasters, local organizations, and poverty in the USA, 1998 to 2015
Place, Space, and Racially Unequal Exposures to Pollution at Home and Work
Research on racial inequalities in exposure to industrial pollution in U.S. metropolitan areas typically focuses on places of residence, ignoring the fact that most people work and commute to other areas to do so. To investigate what these daily commutes mean for understanding place- and space-based disparities in exposure, we merge federally compiled data on commuting and industrial air pollution with sociodemographic data on the home and work t…
Immigration Attitudes Before and After Tragedy in Copenhagen: The Importance of Political Affiliation and Safety Concerns
This research analyzes attitudes on immigration before and after the February 14–15, 2015 Copenhagen shootings. Little research has been conducted on changes in immigration beliefs pre‐ and postcrisis events, and, further, this research has not closely considered how political views and safety concerns may operate within immigration beliefs in an additive, interactive, or mediating fashion. Using the 2014 and 2015 Copenhagen Area Surveys, the lat…
More Inclusive Parks Planning: Park Quality and Preferences for Park Access and Amenities
Parks are increasingly viewed as places that prompt environmental justice analysis. While these studies have focused on inequalities in access to parks and amenities within parks, we offer a third important topic of study: the opinions and preferences of minorities with regards to park usage. We link empirical environmental justice analysis on parks with the core environmental justice belief that marginalized communities must have a voice in plan…
Climate change denial, political beliefs, and cities: Evidence from Copenhagen and Houston
Using data from surveys of Copenhagen and Houston, this article examines climate change denial in two cities with dramatically different environmental traditions. Previous research on climate change beliefs conceptualizes political views along a spectrum, from right-wing party members to moderates to left-wing party members or along a left-right ideological scale. Findings indicate that conventional assumptions about political identification and …
Disasters, local organizations, and poverty in the USA, 1998 to 2015
Place, Space, and Racially Unequal Exposures to Pollution at Home and Work
Research on racial inequalities in exposure to industrial pollution in U.S. metropolitan areas typically focuses on places of residence, ignoring the fact that most people work and commute to other areas to do so. To investigate what these daily commutes mean for understanding place- and space-based disparities in exposure, we merge federally compiled data on commuting and industrial air pollution with sociodemographic data on the home and work t…
A Polluting Creed: Religion and Environmental Inequality in the United States
Research on religion and the environment primarily focuses how religion shapes environmental attitudes, but this leaves aside how this connection links to observable levels of pollution. This article outlines three elements by which religion and environmental inequality are related: the cumulative effect of religious worldviews, free market outlooks held by some religious adherents, and the bridging or bonding character of social ties of religiou…
Behind a bicycling boom: Governance, cultural change and place character in Memphis, Tennessee
Drawing on theories of place, new political cultures, and idio-cultural perceptions, this paper examines the case of recent place character change in Memphis, Tennessee. Since 2009, a burgeoning bicycling culture has taken root in the city alongside a massive increase in bicycling infrastructure. We analyse how these changes are paralleled by shifts in governance emphasising amenity-based urbanism that favours themes of creative class-centred eco…
Social Capital and Industrial Air Pollution in Metropolitan America
Large disparities in industrial air pollution exist between metropolitan areas in the United States, but we have little measurable sense of what shapes this inequality. Using data on industrial air pollution and social capital organizations, I show how metropolitan areas higher in “connected” social capital – where members have social ties that extend to other organizations in a metropolitan area – are associated with less pollution. Conversely, …
Immigration Attitudes Before and After Tragedy in Copenhagen: The Importance of Political Affiliation and Safety Concerns
This research analyzes attitudes on immigration before and after the February 14–15, 2015 Copenhagen shootings. Little research has been conducted on changes in immigration beliefs pre‐ and postcrisis events, and, further, this research has not closely considered how political views and safety concerns may operate within immigration beliefs in an additive, interactive, or mediating fashion. Using the 2014 and 2015 Copenhagen Area Surveys, the lat…
Climate change denial, political beliefs, and cities: Evidence from Copenhagen and Houston
Using data from surveys of Copenhagen and Houston, this article examines climate change denial in two cities with dramatically different environmental traditions. Previous research on climate change beliefs conceptualizes political views along a spectrum, from right-wing party members to moderates to left-wing party members or along a left-right ideological scale. Findings indicate that conventional assumptions about political identification and …
Do Urban Europeans Trust Their Fellow City Dwellers? Immigration, Group Threat, and Intergroup Contact in 63 European Cities
As societies become more diverse, especially with inflows of immigrants, some research finds lowered social trust as an inclusive integration eludes countries, cities, and neighborhoods. But previous research finds this diversity–trust link to be highly variable across studies and in particular across geographic scales. One under-studied scale is that of cities, even though trust is essential to facilitating intergroup contact and because cities …
Being green in a green capital: Assessing drivers of pro-environmental behaviors in Copenhagen
Multi-scalar and multi-dimensional conceptions of social capital and mental health impacts after disaster: The case of Hurricane Harvey
While much research investigates how social capital relates to mental health after disasters, less work employs a multi-scalar, multi-dimensional social capital framework. This study applies such a construct to an analysis of novel survey data of approximately 1,000 rural and urban Texans after Hurricane Harvey struck the United States in August 2017. On the individual level, it finds that greater social support is linked to fewer mental health i…
Race and affluence shape spatio-temporal urbanization trends in Greater Houston, 1997 to 2016
Urban Europeans' viewpoints on immigrants in the city: Re-considering how group threat operates across national and urban contexts
Inequalities and interrelations: The sociology of disasters at a new crossroads
While the sociology of disasters was slow to incorporate the study of inequality in analyses, recent research in the field has centered the study of inequality. Powered by changing empirical terrain in the form of climate change and by theoretically engagement with other sociological subfields, our article showcases how this research analyzes inequality by tracing three research motifs of scale, time, and feedbacks. Using a data set of nearly 200…
Examining the Relationship Between Racialized Poverty Segregation and Hazardous Industrial Facilities in the U.S. Over Time
Scholars interested in understanding the unequal exposure to environmental harms by race and class have often relied on urban sociological theory. Specifically, the argument that the outmigration of middle-class Whites and African Americans from America’s industrial areas, and the decline in manufacturing employment in these communities, concentrated minority poverty around industrial sites. These nested, community-level, processes have not yet b…
Big city, little worries? Little city, big worries? How immigration levels and city size shape safety perceptions in urban Europe
The Urban Commons: How Data and Technology Can Rebuild Our Communities
More Inclusive Parks Planning: Park Quality and Preferences for Park Access and Amenities
Parks are increasingly viewed as places that prompt environmental justice analysis. While these studies have focused on inequalities in access to parks and amenities within parks, we offer a third important topic of study: the opinions and preferences of minorities with regards to park usage. We link empirical environmental justice analysis on parks with the core environmental justice belief that marginalized communities must have a voice in plan…
Climate change denial, political beliefs, and cities: Evidence from Copenhagen and Houston
Using data from surveys of Copenhagen and Houston, this article examines climate change denial in two cities with dramatically different environmental traditions. Previous research on climate change beliefs conceptualizes political views along a spectrum, from right-wing party members to moderates to left-wing party members or along a left-right ideological scale. Findings indicate that conventional assumptions about political identification and …
Behind a bicycling boom: Governance, cultural change and place character in Memphis, Tennessee
Drawing on theories of place, new political cultures, and idio-cultural perceptions, this paper examines the case of recent place character change in Memphis, Tennessee. Since 2009, a burgeoning bicycling culture has taken root in the city alongside a massive increase in bicycling infrastructure. We analyse how these changes are paralleled by shifts in governance emphasising amenity-based urbanism that favours themes of creative class-centred eco…
Place, Space, and Racially Unequal Exposures to Pollution at Home and Work
Research on racial inequalities in exposure to industrial pollution in U.S. metropolitan areas typically focuses on places of residence, ignoring the fact that most people work and commute to other areas to do so. To investigate what these daily commutes mean for understanding place- and space-based disparities in exposure, we merge federally compiled data on commuting and industrial air pollution with sociodemographic data on the home and work t…
Immigration Attitudes Before and After Tragedy in Copenhagen: The Importance of Political Affiliation and Safety Concerns
This research analyzes attitudes on immigration before and after the February 14–15, 2015 Copenhagen shootings. Little research has been conducted on changes in immigration beliefs pre‐ and postcrisis events, and, further, this research has not closely considered how political views and safety concerns may operate within immigration beliefs in an additive, interactive, or mediating fashion. Using the 2014 and 2015 Copenhagen Area Surveys, the lat…
Disasters, local organizations, and poverty in the USA, 1998 to 2015
A Polluting Creed: Religion and Environmental Inequality in the United States
Research on religion and the environment primarily focuses how religion shapes environmental attitudes, but this leaves aside how this connection links to observable levels of pollution. This article outlines three elements by which religion and environmental inequality are related: the cumulative effect of religious worldviews, free market outlooks held by some religious adherents, and the bridging or bonding character of social ties of religiou…
A spirit of urban capitalism: Market cities, people cities, and cultural justifications
Diverse urban theories discuss how economic processes shape conceptions of a city, but less research focuses on how pragmatic situations of urban life contribute to the characterisation of cities. We argue that pragmatic justifications reify socially constructed meanings of cities by creating a ‘spirit of urban capitalism.’ This framework conceives of two spirits: the market city, which aligns with neoliberal assumptions, and the people city, whi…
Social inequalities in flooding inside and outside of floodplains during Hurricane Harvey
While previous research often finds flood impacts outside of conventional flood risk zones such as FEMA’s 100-year floodplain maps, we have less of a sense of the social and demographic composition of the areas outside of floodplains that experience these impacts, even though social inequalities in flood risk and impacts more broadly is well-documented in the United States. Using data on 100-year floodplains, flood impacts, socio-demographic char…
Race and affluence shape spatio-temporal urbanization trends in Greater Houston, 1997 to 2016
Urban Europeans' viewpoints on immigrants in the city: Re-considering how group threat operates across national and urban contexts
Do Urban Europeans Trust Their Fellow City Dwellers? Immigration, Group Threat, and Intergroup Contact in 63 European Cities
As societies become more diverse, especially with inflows of immigrants, some research finds lowered social trust as an inclusive integration eludes countries, cities, and neighborhoods. But previous research finds this diversity–trust link to be highly variable across studies and in particular across geographic scales. One under-studied scale is that of cities, even though trust is essential to facilitating intergroup contact and because cities …
The Urban Commons: How Data and Technology Can Rebuild Our Communities
Market Cities, People Cities: The Shape of Our Urban Future
“Sewage is not sexy” (p. 38). Without getting caught up in the social construction of evaluative judgements and their gendered antecedents as to what is or is not sexy, we can safely accept this statement as true. Despite its lack of aesthetic appeal, however, how cities handle waste—from human and other animal excrement to the bodies they leave behind when they die—is among the most vital decisions for creating sanitary and healthy living enviro…
Social Capital and Industrial Air Pollution in Metropolitan America
Large disparities in industrial air pollution exist between metropolitan areas in the United States, but we have little measurable sense of what shapes this inequality. Using data on industrial air pollution and social capital organizations, I show how metropolitan areas higher in “connected” social capital – where members have social ties that extend to other organizations in a metropolitan area – are associated with less pollution. Conversely, …
Big city, little worries? Little city, big worries? How immigration levels and city size shape safety perceptions in urban Europe
Metropolitan Manufacturing Decline and Environmental Inequalities in Industrial Air Pollution in the United States
The changing manufacturing economy has received scant attention in research on environmental inequalities, even though manufacturing work in the United States has dropped precipitously since the mid-20th century. I integrate manufacturing decline in metropolitan areas into the study of environmental inequality by using data on industrial air pollution in 1990, 2000, and 2010. I test to see if an indicator of change in the number of manufacturing …
Comparing public expectations with local planning efforts to mitigate coastal hazards: A case study in the city of New Orleans, USA
Inequalities and interrelations: The sociology of disasters at a new crossroads
While the sociology of disasters was slow to incorporate the study of inequality in analyses, recent research in the field has centered the study of inequality. Powered by changing empirical terrain in the form of climate change and by theoretically engagement with other sociological subfields, our article showcases how this research analyzes inequality by tracing three research motifs of scale, time, and feedbacks. Using a data set of nearly 200…
Being green in a green capital: Assessing drivers of pro-environmental behaviors in Copenhagen
Examining the Relationship Between Racialized Poverty Segregation and Hazardous Industrial Facilities in the U.S. Over Time
Scholars interested in understanding the unequal exposure to environmental harms by race and class have often relied on urban sociological theory. Specifically, the argument that the outmigration of middle-class Whites and African Americans from America’s industrial areas, and the decline in manufacturing employment in these communities, concentrated minority poverty around industrial sites. These nested, community-level, processes have not yet b…
Multi-scalar and multi-dimensional conceptions of social capital and mental health impacts after disaster: The case of Hurricane Harvey
While much research investigates how social capital relates to mental health after disasters, less work employs a multi-scalar, multi-dimensional social capital framework. This study applies such a construct to an analysis of novel survey data of approximately 1,000 rural and urban Texans after Hurricane Harvey struck the United States in August 2017. On the individual level, it finds that greater social support is linked to fewer mental health i…
Overlooked Realities: Reimagining “Home” and “House” Among Women Domestic Workers in India
Domestic workers (DWs) are integral to the daily lives of a significant portion of India's urban population, with an estimated 3.9 million individuals employed in domestic roles in urban areas, mostly women. This article explores the perceptions of home, house, and safe spaces among migrant women DWs in Delhi. Through in-depth interviews, it delves into their lived experiences as both breadwinners and survivors of domestic violence, revealing tha…
Climate change and federal aid disbursements after Hurricane Harvey: An extreme event attribution analysis
The role climate change plays in increasing the burden placed on governments and insurers to pay for recovery has not been extensively explored and is the focus of this study. This study examines the impacts of climate change attributed flooding on federal disaster aid disbursement in Harris County, Texas following Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Our approach uses flood models to estimate the amount of flood damages attributable and not attributable to…
Environmental attitudes as a hegemonic discourse? Towards decolonial epistemologies of environmental orientations
Sociology (19 works) · Geography (17 works) · Political science (17 works) · Economics (11 works) · Economic growth (10 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Social science (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Demography (7 works)