Sociology Colloquium Guest - Dr. Angela Simms

Join UGA Sociology as we welcome Dr. Angela Simms (Barnard College) for her talk titled "Fighting for a Foothold: How Government and Markets Undermine Black Middle-Class Suburbia."

Dr. Simms’s talk will focus on her recently published book Fighting for a Foothold, which argues that Black middle-class counties subsidize White middle-class counties’ tax revenue generation due to the unique constraints Black jurisdictions face—the cumulative effects of anti-Black racism, raced and classed flows of people and capital into local jurisdictions, and shared authority across levels of government that fails to account for Black jurisdictions’ historical and ongoing disadvantages. Her research is based on Prince George’s County, Maryland, a suburban jurisdiction in the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Area. The county is home to the highest concentration of Black middle-class residents in the United States. As such, it is well positioned to overcome White domination and anti-Black racism and their social and economic consequences. Yet Prince George’s does not raise tax revenue sufficient to provide consistent high-quality public goods and services. Dr. Simms draws on two years of observations of Prince George’s County’s budget and policy development processes, interviews with nearly 60 Prince George’s leaders and residents, and budget and policy analysis for Prince George’s County and its two Whiter, wealthier neighbors, Montgomery County, Maryland, and Fairfax County, Virginia. Her talk will also include policy recommendations—among them, regional cost-sharing arrangements and increased support of public goods and services from the federal government and states.