WSU Urban Studies Blog

CityLab has published a new Infographic  that presents a precinct by precinct breakdown of the political races in the 2023 preliminary municipal election.   There were five races. Four of the City Council district seats (Districts 1, 2, 4, and 5) and one in a new School Committee district (District E).  Each area had more than 2 candidates running, which triggered the preliminary runoffs.  Voter turnout for the election was typically low at 9.1% overall. At the district level, though, there was some variation:      District 1 -- 10.7%     District 2 -- 8.1%     District 4 -- 4.9%     District 5 -- 12.2%     District E --   9.1% Such an imbalance raises questions about the At-Large seats in the general election. In this election, the precinct with the highest vote total, which was in District 5, had as many voters as 10 of the lowest vote total precincts. Seven of the 10 lowest voting precincts were...

CityLab researchers have released a new infographic that provides a brief glimpse into continued race disparities among WPS disciplinary actions.   The same disparity has remained consistent for the last decade: Latino students are disciplined at a rate considerably higher than their White counterparts.  While this might be expected given that less than 30% of WPS students are White, the infographic focuses on proportionality of each group instead of student numbers. Looking at proportionality allows researchers to see that Latino students are regularly disciplined at at rate that is consistently 12 - 16% higher then their percent population of the district while their White counter-parts are disciplined at a rate that is consistently 8-13% lower than their percent of the district population.   Moreover, this is the only large urban pubic district in Massachusetts that sees this problem. See the infographic here .  

TELL YOUR STORY by adding it to our new COVID-19 Digital Archives.  We want to hear the stories of Central MA people from all walks of life.  Complete a self-guided online oral history, record your own, request to be interviewed by project staff, or contribute a video diary or image on your own. You can get to the collector by following this link:  worcester.edu/CityLab . Feel free to share it with your friends and family, too.     WHO WE ARE.  We are a diverse group of WSU professors from 11 different academic departments and the WSU library working to document the local impact of the COVID-19 pandemic through Urban Studies’ CityLab.  Participating professors are from: CJ, DEEP, Education, Health Sciences, History & Political Science, Nursing, Psychology, Sociology, Urban Studies, V+PA, and World Languages   If you have questions, contact  CityLab@worcester.edu .