Neil Smith (geographer)

Neil Smith
Born 1954
Leith, Scotland
Occupation Geographer

Neil Smith was born 1954 in Leith, Scotland. he is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography, at the Graduate Center department of the City University of New York. From 2008 he holds a twenty percent appointment as Sixth Century Professor of Geography and Social Theory, at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland, his native land. Dr Smith earned his B.Sc. degree from the University of St. Andrews, and his Ph.D. degree from Johns Hopkins University, where he studied under David Harvey. Formerly, he was the Robert Lincoln McNeil Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, and taught at Columbia and Rutgers universities, where, in this last, he was chair of the geography department (1991–94), and a senior fellow at the Center for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture.

Professor Smith’s research explores the broad intersections among space, nature, social theory, and history, including trenchant analysis of American Empire. In his major work of social theory (Smith 1984), he proposed that uneven spatial development is a function of the procedural logic of capital markets, thus, society and economies 'produce' space.[1][2] Prof. Smith is credited with the convincing theories about the gentrification of the inner city as an economic process propelled by urban land prices and city land speculation — not a cultural preference for living in the city; his seminal article, "Toward a Theory of Gentrification: A Back to the City Movement by Capital, not People" (1979) is cited more than 300 times.

Publications

Books

Articles

References

  1. ^ Patrick Bond. 1999. What is Uneven Development?. In P.O'Hara (Ed), The Encyclopaedia of Political Economy, London, Routledge.
  2. ^ Neil Smith, The Production of Space.

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