How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America

Mindy Thompson Fullilove, MD, is a board-certified research psychiatrist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and a professor of clinical psychiatry and public health at Columbia University. Fullilove joined the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies in 1986 and has focused on AIDS in relationship to inner city neighborhoods. Most recently, with support of a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Investigator Award, she has studied the long-term consequences of urban renewal for African American people. Her 2004 book, Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It is based on her work in NYC RECOVERS, an alliance of organizations she founded that is concerned with the social and emotional recovery of New York City in the aftermath of 9/11. Part of the Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities series on Places, Peoples, and Spatial Practices.