Derek Hyra
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Derek Hyra

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As an activist and a professor of urban policy at American University, I write about neighborhood change, particularly in African American communities. I was struck by the inequities I witnessed first hand in high school in the 1990s when I played as a member of the Riverside Hawks AAU basketball team in Harlem. This formative experience undergirds my passion for conducting urban and social justice research. My newest book, Slow and Sudden Violence exposes the roots of racial unrest that consistently harms Black communities, showing how when we repeatedly divest, displace, and aggressively police communities, uprisings occur. While my training is in sociology, my work draws on urban planning, geography, political science, economics, history, and public policy. My goal is to help move our unequal urban landscape and political discourse from segregation, dispossession, gentrification, and displacement to equitable growth, stability, and justice. My research has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, among others. In 2024, I received Urban Affairs Association’s Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award and I’ve served as an Alexandria (Virginia) Planning Commissioner and an Obama appointee on the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Council on Underserved Communities. I obtained my Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and B.A. from Colgate University.
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