Russell Weaver, Ph.D., is a geographer, quantitative social scientist, and Director of Research at the Cornell ILR School Buffalo Co-Lab. He was previously an associate professor in the Texas State University Department of Geography, where he taught courses in community geography, community development, urban planning, geographic thought, and quantitative data analysis. Dr. Weaver’s research programs are aimed at understanding and contributing to pathways for context-sensitive, sustainable, and equitable community change. He is the lead author of the book “Shrinking Cities: Understanding Urban Decline in the United States.” Find him on Twitter @RustBeltGeo.
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People-Led and Data-Driven
Buffalo Activists Fight Against Gerrymandering and for Equitable Community Change
Monday, October 03, 2022, 1pm EDT
Event Overview
Every decade, people in the United States are inundated with media reports that make accusations and decry instances of political gerrymandering at the federal, state, and local levels of government. Gerrymandering involves redrawing legislative boundaries to create built-in electoral advantages for the people in power. Through gerrymandering, these map drawers — who are usually the very legislators whose districts are being redrawn — make it easier for them and their allies to hold onto and expand power and more difficult for their opponents to win power. In that sense, gerrymandering is a mechanism for institutionalizing inequality in society. Yet gerrymandering takes shape in the broader process of redistricting, which is meant to advance equality by ensuring that all legislative districts in a jurisdiction contain approximately the same number of people, thereby protecting the American democratic principle of “one person, one vote.”
This Keynote draws on material from a newly launched eCornell certificate in Equitable Community Change to show how and why a process that is outwardly committed to equality and democracy (redistricting) repeatedly gives way to antidemocratic actions that create and exacerbate social inequality (gerrymandering). Situated in the broader Equitable Community Change curriculum, the discussion will unpack the ongoing case of local redistricting in Buffalo, NY, to demonstrate how grassroots community coalitions can organize not only against gerrymandering but as proponents for alternative visions generated and refined through democratic, participatory processes. The Buffalo case reveals broad insights into the steps and work needed to build people power capable of designing and implementing programs for equitable community change in an unequal world.
RESOURCES / NEXT STEPS
EQUITABLE COMMUNITY CHANGE Cornell Certificate Program
Shrinking Cities: Understanding Urban Decline in the United States
Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi
How Civil Wars Start And How to Stop Them By Barbara F. Walter
Target Analysis Chart
Issue Identification Outline
This Keynote draws on material from a newly launched eCornell certificate in Equitable Community Change to show how and why a process that is outwardly committed to equality and democracy (redistricting) repeatedly gives way to antidemocratic actions that create and exacerbate social inequality (gerrymandering). Situated in the broader Equitable Community Change curriculum, the discussion will unpack the ongoing case of local redistricting in Buffalo, NY, to demonstrate how grassroots community coalitions can organize not only against gerrymandering but as proponents for alternative visions generated and refined through democratic, participatory processes. The Buffalo case reveals broad insights into the steps and work needed to build people power capable of designing and implementing programs for equitable community change in an unequal world.
RESOURCES / NEXT STEPS
EQUITABLE COMMUNITY CHANGE Cornell Certificate Program
Shrinking Cities: Understanding Urban Decline in the United States
Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi
How Civil Wars Start And How to Stop Them By Barbara F. Walter
Target Analysis Chart
Issue Identification Outline
What You'll Learn
- What local political redistricting in American cities entails
- How the redistricting process tends to be antidemocratic and opaque
- How the evolving subfield of “community geography” can aid in demystifying redistricting and help to democratize the process
- Ways that grassroots coalitions in Buffalo are working with community geographers to fight gerrymandering
- How community coalitions move beyond fighting against something they don’t want and toward envisioning and building what they do want
Speaker
Russell Weaver
Director of Research
Cornell ILR Buffalo Co-Lab
Director of Research, Cornell ILR Buffalo Co-Lab
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Oct03
Add to Calendar 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EDT
2022-10-03 13:002022-10-03 14:00People-Led and Data-DrivenAdd to CalendarEvery decade, people in the United States are inundated with media reports that make accusations and decry instances of political gerrymandering at the federal, state, and local levels of government. Gerrymandering involves redrawing legislative boundaries to create built-in electoral advantages for the people in power. Through gerrymandering, these map drawers — who are usually the very legislators whose districts are being redrawn — make it easier for them and their allies to hold onto and expand power and more difficult for their opponents to win power. In that sense, gerrymandering is a mechanism for institutionalizing inequality in society. Yet gerrymandering takes shape in the broader process of redistricting, which is meant to advance equality by ensuring that all legislative districts in a jurisdiction contain approximately the same number of people, thereby protecting the American democratic principle of “one person, one vote.”
This Keynote draws on material from a newly launched eCornell certificate in Equitable Community Change to show how and why a process that is outwardly committed to equality and democracy (redistricting) repeatedly gives way to antidemocratic actions that create and exacerbate social inequality (gerrymandering). Situated in the broader Equitable Community Change curriculum, the discussion will unpack the ongoing case of local redistricting in Buffalo, NY, to demonstrate how grassroots community coalitions can organize not only against gerrymandering but as proponents for alternative visions generated and refined through democratic, participatory processes. The Buffalo case reveals broad insights into the steps and work needed to build people power capable of designing and implementing programs for equitable community change in an unequal world.
RESOURCES / NEXT STEPS
EQUITABLE COMMUNITY CHANGE Cornell Certificate Program
Shrinking Cities: Understanding Urban Decline in the United States
Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi
How Civil Wars Start And How to Stop Them By Barbara F. Walter
Target Analysis Chart
Issue Identification Outlinehttps://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/view/K100322/primaryAmerica/New_YorkeCornell
This Keynote draws on material from a newly launched eCornell certificate in Equitable Community Change to show how and why a process that is outwardly committed to equality and democracy (redistricting) repeatedly gives way to antidemocratic actions that create and exacerbate social inequality (gerrymandering). Situated in the broader Equitable Community Change curriculum, the discussion will unpack the ongoing case of local redistricting in Buffalo, NY, to demonstrate how grassroots community coalitions can organize not only against gerrymandering but as proponents for alternative visions generated and refined through democratic, participatory processes. The Buffalo case reveals broad insights into the steps and work needed to build people power capable of designing and implementing programs for equitable community change in an unequal world.
RESOURCES / NEXT STEPS
EQUITABLE COMMUNITY CHANGE Cornell Certificate Program
Shrinking Cities: Understanding Urban Decline in the United States
Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi
How Civil Wars Start And How to Stop Them By Barbara F. Walter
Target Analysis Chart
Issue Identification Outlinehttps://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/view/K100322/primaryAmerica/New_YorkeCornell
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