Once the American Dream: Inner-Ring Suburbs of the Metropolitan United States

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments B ooks are collaborative projects, and this one owes much to colleagues , friends, family, and mentors. First and foremost, I acknowledge my mentor, John Rennie Short. He is an inspiration and a true scholar. I am forever thankful for his support and insight, which he generously provided with grace and modesty. Others also guided me through the process of producing this book. I thank Royce Hanson, a genuine and truly humble mentor not only to me but to numerous other young scholars and students. I hope he never retires again! Royce Hanson hired me for my first academic position at the Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education (CUERE) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). For this, I will be eternally grateful. I am also grateful to Marie Howland, who has genuinely shaped my intellectual pursuits and has been a tremendous influence on my growth as a scholar. I look back with fondness on weekly trips to College Park to join other doctoral candidates in discussions about metropolitan planning and economic development. I am very thankful for all her support during the writing of this book. Similarly, Dave Marcotte supported me tremendously during my time at UMBC. He is a mentor and a friend, and I have greatly enjoyed our lunches together over the years. I also thank Donald F . Norris for his guidance during my dissertation and studies at UMBC. He is a wonderful mentor to his students, and he has helped me immeasurably. I am truly indebted to him for his support of this project. A number of other individuals in the UMBC Public Policy program also deserve acknowledgment: Cheryl Miller and Marvin Mandel have been tremendously helpful in my professional development; Sally Helms, Linda Kassab, Linda Brown, Gay Warshaw, and Anne Roland deserve special thanks for guiding me through my days as a student. In addition, I am indebted to my colleagues at CUERE. Specifically, I thank Claire Welty, the director, for offering her support during my academic career. She is a tremendous role model, and I can only aim to follow her example of hard work. Without her generosity, it would not have been possible for me to complete my doctoral work, this book, and all my other research thus far. I am forever grateful to her. Amy Rynes, assistant director at CUERE, has also long supported me in my career and in my work at the center. In addition, I owe the following “CUERE collaborators” a debt of gratitude: Mike McGuire has provided much support, particularly in helping me to improve my Geographic Information Systems skills; Sabrina Strohmier has been the model of patience and support, and CUERE is lucky to have found her; Stu Schwartz listened to me talk endlessly about suburbs, along with Rich Pouyat, Ken Belt, and Ian Yesilonis, who gave me the opportunity to escape from my writing den for much-needed lunchtime chats. I am also obliged to Thomas Vicino, a former fellow graduate student and CUERE colleague. Tom Vicino, John Short, and I have worked closely for a number of years now, and this collaboration has been a great source of inspiration. I am so glad that, as we have moved along in our careers, my friendship and professional relationship with Tom have continued. Many scholars heard different versions or portions of this project at various conferences in recent years, including annual meetings of the Urban Affairs Association and the American Collegiate Schools of Planning . Such scholars as Dennis Keating, Katrin Anacker, David Phillips, William Lucy, Todd Swanstrom, Peter Dreier, Robert Lang, Marc Levine, Robert Lake, Sugie Lee, and Paul Jargowsky provided significant feedback on different aspects and various reiterations of the material in this book. My editor at Temple University Press, Mick Gusinde-Duffy, has also been fantastic to work with and extremely supportive of the book. xiv / Acknowledgments This book was funded in part by the following sources: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Science Foundation. I thank these organizations for their support. All statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of any of the funding agencies. Incredibly, my nephews Gabriel, Jack, and Liam, the latest additions to my family, were all born during the process of completing this book. It takes the Irish and the Jamaicans to achieve this level...