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Classic models of urban inequality acknowledge the importance of politics for resource distribution and service provision. Yet, contemporary studies of spatial inequality rarely measure politics directly. In this paper, we introduce political dynasties as a way of integrating political economy approaches with ecological theory to better understand the political construction of urban spatial inequality. To do so, we examine the case of political dynasties within the Chicago city council. We show that, from 2011 to 2018, blocks in dynastic wards saw fewer homicides, assaults, robberies, and thefts relative to those in non-dynastic wards. We then leverage the 2015 ward redistricting to provide evidence that dynastic effects play some role in producing these outcomes: blocks annexed into dynastic wards experienced a decline in assaults and robberies and an increase in pothole coverings. While dynastic politicians improve outcomes for blocks they annex, they also withdraw power from those they displace; and displaced blocks had relatively higher levels of crime than annexed blocks in 2015. Taken together, our findings provide evidence that dynastic politicians are contributing to spatial inequalities within Chicago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several conference papers on medical topics for the world meeting on sexual medicine to be held in Chicago, Illinois on August 26-30, 2012. These papers include determination of the outcome and risk factors for vaginectomy in female-to-male (FTM) transsexuals undergoing sex reassignment surgery, deciphering the side effects and somatic co-morbidity in transgender, and characterization of Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) in men.

Faced with the most violent summer in its history, the City of Chicago enacted a gang loitering ordinance, making it an offence to have `no apparent purpose' on city streets. This paper analyses the testimonies of Chicago residents and aldennen to draw out the lay narratives of insecurity that underwrote the ordinance. These testimonies provide evidence for Ericson `S (2007) model of counter- law: the ordinance was a response to broad insecurity among residents, a perceived failure of existing risk management systems, and a view that liberal legal principles were themselves aggravating residents' insecurity. Yet, while counter-law is generally theorized as undermining conventional legality, this paper draws on legal consciousness research and finds that the polysemic appeal of legality endures the counter-law turn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores how racial composition, in-migration and community identity influence the distribution of antiblack and antiwhite hate crimes. Drawing on six years of Chicago Police Department reports, two decades of census data and community survey data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, the paper evaluates hypotheses derived from racial threat, macrostructural opportunity and defended community perspectives. Negative binomial models controlling for spatial dependence reveal different patterns for antiblack and antiwhite hate crimes across Chicago communities. Consistent with a defended communities model, antiblack hate crimes are most common in homogenous white communities with strong community identities undergoing recent black in-migration. In contrast, antiwhite hate crimes are most numerous in communities where blacks and whites comprise near equal proportions, supporting macrostructural opportunity perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current models of change in immigrant churches posit that ethnic congregations become more acculturated in response to inter-generational conflicts. As second and third generation church members attempt to meet their own unique social needs, ethnic churches are forced to revise their goals and structures in order to ensure the survival of their organization. Recent studies, however, cast doubt on whether generational changes are the only catalyst of evolution in ethnic churches. This paper develops an alternative explanation by arguing that religious culture can also exert pressure for change. it does so by showing how a strong emphasis on inter-ethnic evangelism lead to the adoption of English-language services in a Ghanaian Pentecostal church in Chicago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a rich body of literature on the role of ethnic religion in immigrant communities, there has been relatively little attention paid to the role and impact of ethnic religion on the second generation. This is due partly to the earlier dominance of the assimilationist paradigm, which, based mostly on the experiences of the "old" turn-of-the-century European immigrant groups, tended to postulate a second-generation rejection of religion and ethnicity. Drawing on an ethnographic study of Korean- American Christians in Chicago, this study seeks to reexamine the role of ethnic religion for the second generation in the context of a contemporary non-white ethnic group. Contrary to earlier views, findings from Korean-American church-goers suggest that when an ethnic group is faced with a strong sense of social rnarginalization believed to arise from its racial status, the ethnic church can play a dominant role in the group's quest for identity and sense of belonging. This paper shows the ways in which the Korean ethnic church, more specifically the evangelical Protestant church, plays a role in the construction, and maintenance of second-generation Korean ethnic identity and boundary. Serving as a primary site. of the cultural reproduction of the second generation, the Korean ethnic church supports the development of the group's defensive and often highly exclusive ethnic identity in two key ways; first, through a general institutional transmission of Korean culture and second, by the way a set of core traditional Korean values are legitimized and sacralized through their identification with conservative Christian morality and worldview. In demonstrating how ethnic religion can remain highly salient for the second generation under certain situational contexts, this study illuminates the need to rethink the previous views regarding ethnic religion and the second generation, as well as the nature of second-generation ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]