2014 Urban Affairs Association Conference

This is the 44th conference of the Urban Affairs Association, featuring several NNIP partners and Urban Institute staff.   Urban areas have grown at an unprecedented rate in the last decade. More of the world's population now lives in cities than in any other context. International trade, capital investment and divestment, migration, and porous economic, social and political boundaries fuel this global urbanization. Enormous governance challenges result for megacities and fast-growing urban centers due to in-migration and other trends, particularly in the global south. Ethnic, racial and economic disparities across the globe create new tensions and vehicles for exclusion, while also creating interesting possibilities for cooperation and collaboration. Economic, political, and environmental crises further burden governance and demand innovative solutions to problems unique to global urbanization.  All of this raises old and new civic and policy questions about boundaries and borders of global urbanization.  Consequently, the 2014 conference theme is "Borders and Boundaries in an Age of Global Urbanization." The conference site, San Antonio, is a global city with a population of approximately 1.3 million, in a significant border region with boundaries that defy simple conceptualizations. It is one of the fastest growing cities in the United States, and one of its most ethnically diverse, with almost 70 percent of its native and immigrant residents being of Hispanic descent. It provides a particularly apt setting to explore borders and boundaries and how they shape urban affairs in the 21st Century.

At the conference, Erica Raleigh, director of Data Driven Detroit, was presented with the Best Conference Paper" award along with her co-author George Galster.