Given our location in one of America and the world's most examined cities, it is no wonder that our faculty relish the opportunity to explore specific and general questions related to urbanism, environmental change, and political ecology in the Chicago context.  Such is the case with one of our newest faculty members, assistant professor Alec Brownlow.  Dr. Alec Brownlow recently arrived at DePaul from Temple University in Philadelphia where he was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Urban Studies and Interim Director of Temple’s Environmental Studies Program. Alec received his Ph.D. in Geography from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts in 2003.

 Alec’s principle research interests are in the fields of urban ecology and social geography, and he draws from a variety of ecological, spatial, and social theories to explore the social and political implications of environmental and ecological change in U.S. cities. On the one hand, he explores patterns of urban ecological change (both “positive” and “negative”) and analyzes qualitatively and quantitatively how these correspond to and reproduce patterns of marginalization and inequality across the urban landscape. He explores reactions to these ecological changes by local communities – from avoidance of urban forests by those fearful of their safety to local social movements determined to clean up and “re-green” locally significant public green spaces – and studies how different communities position themselves politically and spatially with regard to environmental changes. Generally speaking, this body of work falls within and is informed by the fields of political ecology and environmental justice. On the other hand, Alec explores the emergence of “green discourse” – or eco-modernization – within the language of gentrification and urban renewal. The sudden and rapid emergence of Ecological Restoration as a viable and increasingly paradigmatic tool for urban land management and renewal in U.S. cities is of particular interest. Alec asks: who is served by restoration? Who is not? How is restoration used at and interpreted by different groups of stakeholders residing at different scales and in different echelons of urban society? Can restoration reflect the diversity that is urban society?

 Alec also hopes to begin investigating questions of nature and the “immigrant question” in the U.S. Specifically, he hopes to explore: how culturally-defined concepts of Nature and Property are negotiated by recent immigrants to the U.S.; how these concepts are used to categorize immigrants as “other”; and the violence (or opportunities for violence) that often accompany immigrants in their attempts to negotiate and access these abstract spaces.

 Finally, Alec has recently begun looking at the relationships between urban renewal, the risk society, and the ‘Safe City’ discourse. Viewing urban renewal through the dual prisms of neoliberalism and globalization, Alec is beginning to explore the risks, the socio-technological problems, and the injustices that are under-emphasized or “covered-up” by cities in this age of increasing global urban competition. These risks include violent crime, environmental and industrial hazards, and other conditions whose minimization are generally included under the category of “quality of life” variables.