Scott Larson

Scott Larson (PhD CUNY Graduate Center, 2010) is a faculty member and Co-Director of the Office of Community Studies and the Service Learning program in the Urban Studies Department at Queens College. His research focuses on urban space and social justice, including the issues of redevelopment, gentrification and community-led urbanism. His book, Building Like Moses in Mind: Contemporary Planning in New York City (Temple University Press, 2013), uses ongoing debates about the legacies of Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses as a lens for examining the redevelopment strategies of the administration of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Recent publications include the paper “Imagining Social Justice and the False Promise of Urban Park Design” (Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2018) and the chapter, “A High Line for Queens: Celebrating Diversity or Displacing It?”, in Deconstructing the High Line: Postindustrial Urbanism and the Rise of the Elevated Park (Rutgers University Press, 2017).

His current work focuses on Community Land Trusts (CLTs) as a mechanism for reorienting political and economic agency at the community level.