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Davarian L. Baldwin, author of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities. Davarian L. Baldwin is a leading urbanist, historian, and cultural critic. He currently serves as the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies and founding director of the Smart Cities Lab at Trinity College (CT). Baldwin is the author of several books, most recently In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities (Bold Type Books). Baldwin also serves on the executive committee of Scholars for Social Justice. His opinions and commentaries have been featured in numerous outlets from NBC News, PBS, and The History Channel to USAToday, The Washington Post and TIME.

USC is the largest private employer in the Los Angeles County. NYU and Columbia are two of the biggest landholders in Manhattan. And the University of Chicago fields the largest private security force in the world, outside the Vatican. Universities have become big business but there is a cost for those who live in the shadows. In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower takes readers across the country, revealing the increasingly parasitic relationship between universities and our cities. Through eye-opening conversations with city leaders, campus workers, community activists, and neighborhood residents, Davarian Baldwin makes clear who benefits from unchecked university power--and who is made vulnerable.