Emily T. Rosenman

I am an urban and economic geographer who researches the connections between finance, urbanization, and inequality. My work is motivated by the aim of understanding relationships that produce both wealth and impoverishment, with particular attention to the uneven geographies of financialization and racialization that characterize contemporary urban life. My core question is: how do entwined social, economic, and environmental crises become understood as problems to which the solution is finance, and with what results for various constituencies? Methodologically I take a relational approach, examining how solutions to crises are narrated and experienced by financial industry actors, governments, communities, and the intermediaries that connect them. I also have a long-standing interest in the politics of knowledge production in urban and economic geography.

Within these broad themes I have several projects examining how struggles against socioeconomic inequality relate to – and are incorporated into – the financial system. First, I investigate the geographies of “social” and “green” investments. My current work in this area focuses on for-profit investing that aims to increase racial justice, on low-carbon energy retrofitting projects in low-income housing markets, and on the new market for Income Share Agreements (alternatives to US student loans). Another project focuses on the philanthropy of the ultra-rich and its connections to urban governance. Finally, I am working with several collaborators to theorize and investigate the connections between monetary policy and regional inequality in the US and Canada.