Allen Micheal Wright is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology at UC Berkeley, where he studies organizations, law and urban redevelopment. His dissertation is a historical case study of the emergence of private-public partnerships for urban redevelopment, with a focus on urban renewal and land banking. By process tracing the case of urban redevelopment in Detroit from 1950 to 2020, he argues that the emergence of land banking is linked to the demise of urban renewal. He tracks the key moments of this gradual transformation of legal institutions and organizational forms across the local field of urban redevelopment in Detroit and the US national juridical field. His research has broad theoretical implications for sociological field theory, and contributes substantively to the sociology of law, organizations, law and society, urban sociology, urban planning and racial inequality.
Allen Micheal also holds an MA in sociology and education from Columbia University, and was once a sixth grade mathematics teacher with Teach for America. Outside of his research, teaching and mentorship of undergraduate students, he is an avid climber, gardener and yogi.