James Fraser — Urban & Environmental Scholar

The work

Four through-lines of the research. Select a theme to bring it to the screen and play a short overview — then open it to read and download the work itself.

Urban

0:00

Select a theme above, then press play for a short audio or video overview.

Read the work behind each theme

The Engineering of Exclusion

Gentrification, the Over-the-Rhine People's Movement, and the right to claim the city.

›

Key works — Urban

2019After Gentrification: Social Mix, Settler Colonialism, and Cruel Optimism. AntipodeDownload

2004Beyond Gentrification: Mobilizing Communities and Claiming Space. Urban GeographyDownload

2003Building Community Citizens: Claiming the Right to Place-Making. Urban StudiesDownload

2016Disrupting the Order of Things: Public Housing Tenant Organizing. CitiesDownload

Why Homeowners Are Trapped in Floodplains

FEMA buyouts, repetitive-loss properties, and community-based flood policy.

›

Key works — Environment

2017Historical Waterscape Trajectories That Need Care: Kinston's Flood Homes. Journal of Political EcologyDownload

2011Repetitive Flood Victims and Acceptance of FEMA Mitigation Offers. DisastersDownload

2006Creating Effective Flood Mitigation Policies. Eos, AGUDownload

2006Mitigating Repetitive Loss Properties. FEMA ReportDownload

Why Affordable Housing Needs an Income Floor

The POAH / Over-the-Rhine study on mixed-income neighborhoods and economic mobility.

›

Key works — Housing

2024Thriving, Not Just Surviving: Making Mixed-Income Neighborhoods Work. POAH Final ReportDownload

2016U.S. Public-Housing Transformations and the Housing Publics Lost in Transition. City & CommunityDownload

2013HOPE VI, Colonization, and the Production of Difference. Urban Affairs ReviewDownload

2012HOPE VI: Calling for Modesty in Its Claims. Mixed CommunitiesDownload

Stopping Displacement in a Booming City

From congressional testimony to inclusionary zoning — research that shapes policy.

›

Key works — On the Record

2009Academic Perspectives on the Future of Public Housing. U.S. House Subcommittee TestimonyHearing record

2016Housing Policy and Inclusionary Zoning Feasibility Study. Metro Planning, NashvilleDownload

2014Equitable Development: Maximizing Affordability, Minimizing Displacement. Metro Planning, NashvilleDownload

—Policy Brief: Housing, Displacement & the Public Interest. J. FraserDownload

Under review

Manuscripts in review and sponsored research in the pipeline — the newest of the work.

Under review

Geographies of Refusal: Black Organizing and the Long Spatial Struggle in Nashville, Tennessee, 1850–2026

Under review

The Limits of Cash: Guaranteed Income and the Reproduction of the Precarious City

with D. Oakley

Under review

After Reparations Washing: Cities, Racial Capitalism, and the Spatial Politics of Repair

Under review

Enforcing the Unlivable: The Police Imaginary in the Carceral Geography of Homelessness

with T. Davis

Under review

Organizing for a New Social Horizon — Contagiously, Collectively, and the Production of Locality under Racial Capitalism

with J.-P. Addie

Under review

Unsettling Property: Race, Precarity, and the Politics of Home at Fort Negley, Nashville

Grant proposals

Funded · Active

Trojan Pathways: An AI-Integrated Faculty Toolkit for Individualized Student Learning

Virginia State University Fellows Program · PI · 2026–2027

Read the proposal ▸

Under review

Building Housing or Capitalizing Land? Causal Evidence from Richmond and Atlanta Opportunity Zones, and TRACT, a Decision-Support System for OZ 2.0

U.S. Dept. of Housing & Urban Development, PD&R · PI · $1.5M · with D. Oakley, D. Yoo & T. Davis

Under review

Artificial Intelligence: Scaffolding or Substitution for Critical Thinking

Spencer Foundation · PI: D. Yoo · with D. Oakley & J. Fraser

Who gets to claim the city, and on what terms?

The work

Under review

Grant proposals

Featured writing