Research!
Current
Research
I have spent the past four years studying the evolution of cities in the Levant, beginning with the site of Ohalo II on the shores of the Galilee, through the complex foragers of the Natufian period 14 thousand years ago, to the earliest neolithic sites of Jericho, Mureybet, Catal Hoyuk and on to the budding cities of Uruk and Sumerian period Mesopotamia. A work of interdisciplinary science, my background in combined Sociology-Anthropology departments has convinced me that such an approach is necessary even to the study of modern cities. Testing the framework developed in my third book, Gilboa, I am currently drafting this new book (tentatively titled City and Country) and will submit the manuscript in early 2007.
Another manuscript is moving along nicely. Upstate Down, a collaboration with Bill Wilkerson (Chair of Political Science at SUNY) and Polly Smith (Professor of Sociology at Utica College, as well as my wife) is about the recent socioeconomic data in New York State. As it turns out, the New York metropolitan area is thriving - the city alone added almost a million residents since 1990 - while upstate is in doldrums. Upstate Down explains this dynamic as it relates to the functioning of the global economy, and even proposes some ideas for fixing the problems. It will be published soon by SUNY Press.
My most recent book investigates the building of the Schoharie Reservoir, in Gilboa, N. Y., by the city of New York for its water supply. I argue that the construction was necessary due not only to the real water needs of the city, but that those needs are common among major cities during all time periods. Using comparative data from Babylon, Athens, and Rome, it is argued that the rise of New York to the status of global city took place because of the exploitation of its rural hinterland in ways that are not fully appreciated. The rise of New York incorporates common dynamics found between all cities and their rural hinterland, and thus the case of New York and Gilboa is a splendid case study of the dynamics found between city and country.
I recently completed a major project studying the impact of economic restructuring in central New York State. A continuation of research started with my dissertation, the goal of this project is to examine the impact of the global economy on the “low end” of the world system. Quantitative data, interviews, and an historical analysis reveal central New York to be an “internal colony” of global cities (esp. New York) that have lost administrative functions to larger cities (e.g., Syracuse, Albany, New York) and production facilities (both industrial and agricultural) to low wage regions of the United States and the world. Central New York serves as an ideal laboratory for examining such trends as a number of themes are likely found elsewhere as well: the turn to tourism as an economic elixir, the dominance of larger markets over small even over great distances, and a trend of local residents to travel increasing distances for retail goods and services. This research was published in a book titled In Gotham's Shadow by SUNY Press in 2002.
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