Biography
Robin Bartram specializes in urban sociology and studies how regulations shape housing inequality. She is writing a book on building inspections in Chicago and has published other work on the regulation of building conditions and affordable housing in a variety of academic and non‐academic venues.
Research
This project aims to evince a new understanding of how the government shapes urban landscapes. Across disciplines, researchers have shown that gentrification feeds off dilapidation; upscaling cheap property allows large profit margins and renders neighborhoods unaffordable to existing residents. What receives much less attention, however, are the opportunities to prevent dilapidation in the first place. Drawing on interviews with homeowners, the project investigates the effects of government grants for home repairs in post‐Katrina New Orleans and subsidies for everyday issues stemming from deferred maintenance for homeowners in Chicago. The project has three main goals: 1) to investigate the role of repairs in neighborhood change; 2) to understand how stipulations concerning repair grants shape our urban landscapes; and 3) to challenge conventional understandings of New Orleans as a special case. Overall, the project aims to shed light on hitherto unrecognized relationships between government grants, home repairs, gentrification, and inequality in the city.
