Davarian Baldwin
@davarianbaldwin.bsky.social
Urbanist/teacher/writer/community advocate
Founding Director, Smart Cities Research Lab
Author, In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower
Founding Director, Smart Cities Research Lab
Author, In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower
NEW VIDEO: What does Duke owe Durham? Historian and urbanist @davarianbaldwin.bsky.social breaks down the role of universities like Duke and why they should invest more to support workers and communities. www.facingsouth.org/2025/10/watc...
WATCH: What does Duke owe Durham?
At a recent Institute forum, urbanist and historian Prof. Davarian Baldwin looked at the role of universities in their communities, and why institutions like Duke University should do more to invest i...
www.facingsouth.org
October 28, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Excited to speak at Undercommoning the Urban Campus on Nov 3 in Lexington, KY!
Joining brilliant minds like Rachel Gross, Faheem Majeed & Leen Katrib to rethink how campuses shape our cities.
📍 David Biagi Forum | 2–5pm
#Undercommoning #SmartCities #UrbanCampus
Joining brilliant minds like Rachel Gross, Faheem Majeed & Leen Katrib to rethink how campuses shape our cities.
📍 David Biagi Forum | 2–5pm
#Undercommoning #SmartCities #UrbanCampus
October 26, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Excited to speak at Undercommoning the Urban Campus on Nov 3 in Lexington, KY!
Joining brilliant minds like Rachel Gross, Faheem Majeed & Leen Katrib to rethink how campuses shape our cities.
📍 David Biagi Forum | 2–5pm
#Undercommoning #SmartCities #UrbanCampus
Joining brilliant minds like Rachel Gross, Faheem Majeed & Leen Katrib to rethink how campuses shape our cities.
📍 David Biagi Forum | 2–5pm
#Undercommoning #SmartCities #UrbanCampus
Reposted by Davarian Baldwin
ICE getting tailed like it’s a heist movie. Chicago is turning the tables.
October 9, 2025 at 10:39 AM
ICE getting tailed like it’s a heist movie. Chicago is turning the tables.
What the fuck is going on?!?! We need to stand up for all our colleagues and comrades now!
October 3, 2025 at 3:34 PM
What the fuck is going on?!?! We need to stand up for all our colleagues and comrades now!
It was great to build with @uchicagoaaup.bsky.social...wondeful to watch the momentum for people power pick up and grow 💪🏿
Thanks to everyone who came to “Beyond the Quad” to kick off the year with a discussion of how to build solidarity on a wider basis in the face of gentrification, Medicaid cuts, and more. And thanks especially to panelists @davarianbaldwin.bsky.social , Dixon Romeo, JP Murray, and Cathy Cohen
October 1, 2025 at 9:19 PM
It was great to build with @uchicagoaaup.bsky.social...wondeful to watch the momentum for people power pick up and grow 💪🏿
Reposted by Davarian Baldwin
🌟 TODAY 🌟 What Does Duke Owe Durham? Forum with author @davarianbaldwin.bsky.social about why universities should support workers and communities. 2pm, Asbury United Methodist, Durham. Sponsored by @southernstudies.bsky.social + @durhamrising.bsky.social
www.southernstudies.org/davarianbald...
www.southernstudies.org/davarianbald...
What Does Duke Owe Durham?
The Institute for Southern Studies and Durham Rising invite you to a talk and discussion with award-winning author DAVARIAN BALDWIN Friday, Sept. 26 | 2-3pm Asbury United Methodist Church | 806 Claren...
www.southernstudies.org
September 26, 2025 at 2:49 PM
🌟 TODAY 🌟 What Does Duke Owe Durham? Forum with author @davarianbaldwin.bsky.social about why universities should support workers and communities. 2pm, Asbury United Methodist, Durham. Sponsored by @southernstudies.bsky.social + @durhamrising.bsky.social
www.southernstudies.org/davarianbald...
www.southernstudies.org/davarianbald...
Today the mighty #DurhamRising marches for better relations between Duke + Durham. 🗣️✊🏿
Tomorrow I’ll place these struggles in a broader national context.
This work isn’t just critique—it’s about community building + imagining new futures.
www.newsobserver.com/news/local/c...
Tomorrow I’ll place these struggles in a broader national context.
This work isn’t just critique—it’s about community building + imagining new futures.
www.newsobserver.com/news/local/c...
‘What does Duke owe Durham?’ Rally and talk to critique university’s impact
“I feel like Duke has been exploiting us for years,” said one Duke employee.
www.newsobserver.com
September 25, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Today the mighty #DurhamRising marches for better relations between Duke + Durham. 🗣️✊🏿
Tomorrow I’ll place these struggles in a broader national context.
This work isn’t just critique—it’s about community building + imagining new futures.
www.newsobserver.com/news/local/c...
Tomorrow I’ll place these struggles in a broader national context.
This work isn’t just critique—it’s about community building + imagining new futures.
www.newsobserver.com/news/local/c...
Reposted by Davarian Baldwin
September 23, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Reposted by Davarian Baldwin
What Does Duke Owe Durham? Free talk with @davarianbaldwin.bsky.social on Friday, Sept. 26, 2-3pm at Asbury United Methodist in Durham. Sponsored by @southernstudies.bsky.social and @durhamrising.bsky.social. More information and RSVP: www.southernstudies.org/davarianbald...
What Does Duke Owe Durham?
The Institute for Southern Studies and Durham Rising invite you to a talk and discussion with award-winning author DAVARIAN BALDWIN Friday, Sept. 26 | 2-3pm Asbury United Methodist Church | 806 Claren...
www.southernstudies.org
September 23, 2025 at 6:14 PM
What Does Duke Owe Durham? Free talk with @davarianbaldwin.bsky.social on Friday, Sept. 26, 2-3pm at Asbury United Methodist in Durham. Sponsored by @southernstudies.bsky.social and @durhamrising.bsky.social. More information and RSVP: www.southernstudies.org/davarianbald...
Big news: the Smart Cities Research Lab website is live!
smartcitiesresearchlab.com
Since 2021, we’ve been working on equitable community development—everywhere from New Haven + Durham to Rotterdam. Next stop: Bangkok.
Blessed to keep building. 🙌🏿
#SmarterCities #DevelopmentWithoutDisplacement
smartcitiesresearchlab.com
Since 2021, we’ve been working on equitable community development—everywhere from New Haven + Durham to Rotterdam. Next stop: Bangkok.
Blessed to keep building. 🙌🏿
#SmarterCities #DevelopmentWithoutDisplacement
September 23, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Big news: the Smart Cities Research Lab website is live!
smartcitiesresearchlab.com
Since 2021, we’ve been working on equitable community development—everywhere from New Haven + Durham to Rotterdam. Next stop: Bangkok.
Blessed to keep building. 🙌🏿
#SmarterCities #DevelopmentWithoutDisplacement
smartcitiesresearchlab.com
Since 2021, we’ve been working on equitable community development—everywhere from New Haven + Durham to Rotterdam. Next stop: Bangkok.
Blessed to keep building. 🙌🏿
#SmarterCities #DevelopmentWithoutDisplacement
Big news: the Smart Cities Research Lab website is live!
Since 2021, we’ve been working on equitable community development—everywhere from New Haven + Durham to Rotterdam. Next stop: Bangkok.
Blessed to keep building. 🙌🏿
#SmarterCities #DevelopmentWithoutDisplacement
Since 2021, we’ve been working on equitable community development—everywhere from New Haven + Durham to Rotterdam. Next stop: Bangkok.
Blessed to keep building. 🙌🏿
#SmarterCities #DevelopmentWithoutDisplacement
September 23, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Big news: the Smart Cities Research Lab website is live!
Since 2021, we’ve been working on equitable community development—everywhere from New Haven + Durham to Rotterdam. Next stop: Bangkok.
Blessed to keep building. 🙌🏿
#SmarterCities #DevelopmentWithoutDisplacement
Since 2021, we’ve been working on equitable community development—everywhere from New Haven + Durham to Rotterdam. Next stop: Bangkok.
Blessed to keep building. 🙌🏿
#SmarterCities #DevelopmentWithoutDisplacement
Wow—what a time at the first annual Reparations Summit in St. Louis!
💡 Conversations on higher ed’s harms + strategies for repair
✊🏿 Scholars, organizers, descendant communities nationwide
🙏🏿Thanks to @RobinProudie + #DSLUE for hosting this powerful gathering
#FromAcknowledgmentToAction
💡 Conversations on higher ed’s harms + strategies for repair
✊🏿 Scholars, organizers, descendant communities nationwide
🙏🏿Thanks to @RobinProudie + #DSLUE for hosting this powerful gathering
#FromAcknowledgmentToAction
September 22, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Wow—what a time at the first annual Reparations Summit in St. Louis!
💡 Conversations on higher ed’s harms + strategies for repair
✊🏿 Scholars, organizers, descendant communities nationwide
🙏🏿Thanks to @RobinProudie + #DSLUE for hosting this powerful gathering
#FromAcknowledgmentToAction
💡 Conversations on higher ed’s harms + strategies for repair
✊🏿 Scholars, organizers, descendant communities nationwide
🙏🏿Thanks to @RobinProudie + #DSLUE for hosting this powerful gathering
#FromAcknowledgmentToAction
So thrilled to be back in Durham to help strategize and build people power, so that our wealthiest local institutions truly lean into community responsibility beyond symbolic gestures...let's go ✊🏿!!!
What Does Duke Owe Durham? Join us Friday 9/26 at 2pm for a forum featuring @davarianbaldwin.bsky.social about how Duke University can support workers and the community. Visit here for more info and to RSVP: www.southernstudies.org/davarianbald... @durhamrising.bsky.social
What Does Duke Owe Durham?
The Institute for Southern Studies and Durham Rising invite you to a talk and discussion with award-winning author DAVARIAN BALDWIN Friday, Sept. 26 | 2-3pm Asbury United Methodist Church | 806 Claren...
www.southernstudies.org
September 22, 2025 at 3:08 PM
So thrilled to be back in Durham to help strategize and build people power, so that our wealthiest local institutions truly lean into community responsibility beyond symbolic gestures...let's go ✊🏿!!!
Happy to return to my other home and chop it up at the UChicago Center for Contemporary Theory and also build with @uchicagoaaup.bsky.social
All my Chicagoland peoples, please come thru on September 30...this Higher Ed crisis is deeper than "corporatization."
ccct.uchicago.edu/events/beyon...
All my Chicagoland peoples, please come thru on September 30...this Higher Ed crisis is deeper than "corporatization."
ccct.uchicago.edu/events/beyon...
September 10, 2025 at 9:34 PM
Happy to return to my other home and chop it up at the UChicago Center for Contemporary Theory and also build with @uchicagoaaup.bsky.social
All my Chicagoland peoples, please come thru on September 30...this Higher Ed crisis is deeper than "corporatization."
ccct.uchicago.edu/events/beyon...
All my Chicagoland peoples, please come thru on September 30...this Higher Ed crisis is deeper than "corporatization."
ccct.uchicago.edu/events/beyon...
Reposted by Davarian Baldwin
It's publication day for UNIVERSITY KEYWORDS. Across 27 sharp essays, the book offers a critical account of the political economy of US higher education, how it came to be structured this way, and how together we might build a better university together.
September 9, 2025 at 12:40 PM
It's publication day for UNIVERSITY KEYWORDS. Across 27 sharp essays, the book offers a critical account of the political economy of US higher education, how it came to be structured this way, and how together we might build a better university together.
September 7, 2025 at 7:57 PM
Reposted by Davarian Baldwin
Highly recommend "In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities" by Davarian L. Baldwin.
If you live in a city with a big college, you will notice what author Hattie Whitehead describes in her book & musical about Linnentown— universities taking more and more land.
If you live in a city with a big college, you will notice what author Hattie Whitehead describes in her book & musical about Linnentown— universities taking more and more land.
September 7, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Highly recommend "In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities" by Davarian L. Baldwin.
If you live in a city with a big college, you will notice what author Hattie Whitehead describes in her book & musical about Linnentown— universities taking more and more land.
If you live in a city with a big college, you will notice what author Hattie Whitehead describes in her book & musical about Linnentown— universities taking more and more land.
🎶 Linnentown—The Musical is back in Athens! The community was demolished for UGA dorms. Now it lives on.
Honored to also lecture at UGA + see the new street named Linnentown. ✊🏿 #RenewalProject #UrbanJustice #CommunityPower
Honored to also lecture at UGA + see the new street named Linnentown. ✊🏿 #RenewalProject #UrbanJustice #CommunityPower
September 7, 2025 at 3:15 AM
🎶 Linnentown—The Musical is back in Athens! The community was demolished for UGA dorms. Now it lives on.
Honored to also lecture at UGA + see the new street named Linnentown. ✊🏿 #RenewalProject #UrbanJustice #CommunityPower
Honored to also lecture at UGA + see the new street named Linnentown. ✊🏿 #RenewalProject #UrbanJustice #CommunityPower
Reposted by Davarian Baldwin
Labor activists in coalition of local unions and labor-adjacent orgs. This was new, including the whole workforce of higher ed: faculty, clerical, health care, custodians, librarians, counselors, IT, buildings maintenance, landscapers, dining services, etc.
@higheredlabor.bsky.social
@higheredlabor.bsky.social
Raising HELU, Wall to Wall and Coast to Coast
When Higher Education Labor United was proposed in 2021, the major issues facing higher education were rising tuition, student debt, widespread reliance on contingent faculty, attacks on tenure, threa...
www.dollarsandsense.org
August 29, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Labor activists in coalition of local unions and labor-adjacent orgs. This was new, including the whole workforce of higher ed: faculty, clerical, health care, custodians, librarians, counselors, IT, buildings maintenance, landscapers, dining services, etc.
@higheredlabor.bsky.social
@higheredlabor.bsky.social
#DurhamRising is calling on Duke to act responsibly toward Durham. I spoke with Facing South on how this fits into a national wave of community action. Proud my #SmartCitiesResearchLab can support. 👇🏿
www.facingsouth.org/2025/08/what...
www.facingsouth.org/2025/08/what...
What do universities owe communities? An interview with Davarian Baldwin
At a critical moment for higher education, a leading urban scholar argues universities need to be doing more — not less — to support and invest in the communities where they are based.
www.facingsouth.org
August 29, 2025 at 7:39 PM
#DurhamRising is calling on Duke to act responsibly toward Durham. I spoke with Facing South on how this fits into a national wave of community action. Proud my #SmartCitiesResearchLab can support. 👇🏿
www.facingsouth.org/2025/08/what...
www.facingsouth.org/2025/08/what...
Reposted by Davarian Baldwin
Thank you, Davarian! So glad you’re part of it. Can’t wait to see what possibilities this book creates
August 20, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Thank you, Davarian! So glad you’re part of it. Can’t wait to see what possibilities this book creates
Beautiful work from beautiful minds. Thanks @andyhines.bsky.social for corralling us and assembling #UniversityKeywords.
Get yours NOW!!
Get yours NOW!!
August 20, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Beautiful work from beautiful minds. Thanks @andyhines.bsky.social for corralling us and assembling #UniversityKeywords.
Get yours NOW!!
Get yours NOW!!
Reposted by Davarian Baldwin
On today's @21st.show, we talked about a new analysis of racial disparities in Illinois campus traffic stops.
Our guests: reporter Nicole Jeanine Johnson, Khadine Bennett of ACLU Illinois, criminal justice professor Miltonette Craig and American studies professor @davarianbaldwin.bsky.social.
Our guests: reporter Nicole Jeanine Johnson, Khadine Bennett of ACLU Illinois, criminal justice professor Miltonette Craig and American studies professor @davarianbaldwin.bsky.social.
Why are police on Illinois college campuses stopping Black drivers at high rates?
YouTube video by Illinois Public Media
www.youtube.com
June 9, 2025 at 9:45 PM
On today's @21st.show, we talked about a new analysis of racial disparities in Illinois campus traffic stops.
Our guests: reporter Nicole Jeanine Johnson, Khadine Bennett of ACLU Illinois, criminal justice professor Miltonette Craig and American studies professor @davarianbaldwin.bsky.social.
Our guests: reporter Nicole Jeanine Johnson, Khadine Bennett of ACLU Illinois, criminal justice professor Miltonette Craig and American studies professor @davarianbaldwin.bsky.social.
Reposted by Davarian Baldwin
✍️ Mission Moment – Founding story or moment of impact.
Last year’s conference was a lasting moment in our history, and we can’t wait to convene again in 2026! Until then, we’re listening back to Dr. Davarian Baldwin’s keynote presentation @davarianbaldwin.bsky.social
Last year’s conference was a lasting moment in our history, and we can’t wait to convene again in 2026! Until then, we’re listening back to Dr. Davarian Baldwin’s keynote presentation @davarianbaldwin.bsky.social
June 5, 2025 at 12:53 PM
✍️ Mission Moment – Founding story or moment of impact.
Last year’s conference was a lasting moment in our history, and we can’t wait to convene again in 2026! Until then, we’re listening back to Dr. Davarian Baldwin’s keynote presentation @davarianbaldwin.bsky.social
Last year’s conference was a lasting moment in our history, and we can’t wait to convene again in 2026! Until then, we’re listening back to Dr. Davarian Baldwin’s keynote presentation @davarianbaldwin.bsky.social
Hey!! If you are near Hartford, CT, THIS WEDNESDAY, come to the iconic Artists Collective space for great Caribbean food and a Screening of the 4th episode of @pbs.org series Great Migrations. A panel will follow discussing the Hartford connections!
1200 Albany Ave @ 6pm...Come thru
1200 Albany Ave @ 6pm...Come thru
April 28, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Hey!! If you are near Hartford, CT, THIS WEDNESDAY, come to the iconic Artists Collective space for great Caribbean food and a Screening of the 4th episode of @pbs.org series Great Migrations. A panel will follow discussing the Hartford connections!
1200 Albany Ave @ 6pm...Come thru
1200 Albany Ave @ 6pm...Come thru