Contact Information
1301 West Green Street
Urbana, IL 61801
Research Areas
Biography
David Wilson is currently investigating projects pivoting around the political economy of the U.S. and global north city. Specific projects examine the politics of urban growth regimes in these cities, the politics of competing discourses that generate gentrified neighborhoods and poverty communities, and the racializing of the contemporary urban issues of crime and city growth. Professor Wilson has served on the editorial boards of Urban Geography, Professional Geographer, Social and Cultural Geography, Syracuse University Press (Society, Space, and Place Book Series), Inter-Cultural Studies, the International Encyclopedia of Human Geography project and ACME: International Journal for Critical Geography.
David has been a visiting scholar at universities in China, Germany, and Canada. He was recently listed in a global study of urban geographers (The Professional Geographer) as the eleventh most productive scholar in this field in the world.
Research Interests
Political Economy of Global North Cities
Urban Political Processes
Cultural Studies of Global North Cities
Social Theory and the Built Environment
Qualitative Methods
Education
Ph.D., Rutgers University
B.A., State University of New York at Albany
Courses Taught
GGIS 104 - Urban Geography
GGIS 350 - Sustainability and the City
GGIS 471 - Modern Geographic Thought
GGIS 483 - Urban Geography
GGIS 594 - Seminar in Social Geography
Additional Campus Affiliations
Professor, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory
Professor, African American Studies
Professor, Center for Global Studies
Recent Publications
Wilson, D. (2023). Existential capitalism and gentrification in pandemic times. Human Geography(United Kingdom), 16(3), 334-342. https://doi.org/10.1177/19427786231173065
Schwarze, T., & Wilson, D. (2022). Silencing, Urban Growth Machines, and the Obama Presidential Center on Chicago's South Side. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, 4, Article 835674. https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2022.835674
Wilson, D., & Heil, M. (2022). Decline machines and economic development: rust belt cities and Flint, Michigan. Urban Geography, 43(2), 163-183. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2020.1840736
Wilson, D. (2022). People as infrastructure politics in global north cities: Chicago’s South Side. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 40(1), 165-179. https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544211004165
Wilson, D., & Jonas, A. (2021). The people as infrastructure concept: appraisal and new directions. Urban Geography, 42(9), 1333-1340. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2021.1931752
