Stacey Sutton
Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Policy
Biography
Stacey Sutton (Photo: Jenny Fontaine/University of Illinois Chicago)
Community economies, neighborhood change, small businesses, retail landscapes and how fairness influences their growth represent the mix of Stacey Sutton’s research.
In collaboration with numerous community organizations and national foundations, she has explored the forms and functions of alternative development models, and localism for strengthening economic democracy and increasing opportunities for marginalized communities.
She launched the Solidarity Economy Research, Policy & Law Project, which aims to advance interdisciplinary research, critical analysis, enabling policy, popular education and community alliances that fortify solidarity economy ecosystems, and highlights the transformative potential of projects operating at the intersection of social movement and prefigurative politics.
Sutton’s book project, “Buy Black: Race, Retail, and the Politics of Neighborhood Business Survival,” utilizes a Brooklyn neighborhood’s transformation into “Black Bohemia” as a testament to the empowering potential of Black small business ownership. She also identifies and analyzes the disenfranchising impact of land-use rules, building codes, spatial regulations and the process of gentrification.
