Our Foci

URBAN LIFE: For the first time in history, the majority of the world's popuation lives in cities. What the small town was to the colonial U.S. -the seat of its lifeways, economy, and values-the city has become for our times accross the globe. More than ever before, the city is a living laboratory of social life-a place where we are all busily and unselfconsciously elaborating what kind of people we are and are going to be. At CORRUL, we study both the macro patterns of urban development-such as how land use patterns effect and interact with social processes-and the micro experiences of life as urbanities live it.

RACE and RELIGION: Race, ethnicity, and religion were expected to disappear as modernization progressed. Instead, they are used to sort people in urban space, distribute resources, populate organizations, galvanize politics, fuel conflicts, and provide identities and meaning. Why? And what are the implications of these processes? How do the many groups relate? How do they view and experience their lives relative to other groups? Why do race and religion often thrive in the modern era? CORRUL works to understand the issues of religion, race, ethnicity, and immigration in the context of multicultural cities and nations.