MOODY’S BLUES: RISK, RATINGS, AND THE PRODUCTION OF URBAN SPACE

Speaker: Katharyne Mitchell

What makes a space risky? Dark alleys? Downgraded bonds? Mitchell examines the way that concepts of financial risk and physical risk come together and influence urban politics. Tracing the movement of two global companies—Moody’s Investors Service and Giuliani Partners—she shows how U.S. directed ideas about risk and security profoundly affect the governance of cities worldwide. Mitchell’s topical interests include urban studies, migration, public scholarship, and education. In recent work she has written about immigrant integration in France, education and citizenship in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., and new urban technologies of social and spatial control.