Mapping the Relational Geographies of Lexington’s Housing Landscape

Across the United States, there is growing awareness of the crucial role played by housing in reproducing structures of racial and class inequality. From gentrification to racial segregation to exploitative rental markets, the data demonstrate the ways that contemporary housing processes concentrate poverty and other social problems within certain neighborhoods. This presentation will document the changes in Lexington’s housing landscape over the past half century, with a particular eye towards demonstrating the fundamental connections and co-production of racially concentrated poverty and extreme affluence. Ultimately, this presentation will attempt to shed light on the limitations of using data and mapping in housing advocacy, and point towards alternative understandings of how these methods might be used to challenge the status quo.

Dr. Taylor Shelton is a visiting scholar in the Department of Geography and New Mappings Collaboratory at the University of Kentucky. Taylor earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in geography from UK before continuing on to earn a PhD from the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University in 2015. Prior to returning to Lexington this year, Taylor worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Urban Innovation at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research is situated at the intersection of critical GIS, digital and urban geographies, using the tools of GIS and big data to understand and rethink urban social and spatial inequalities.