Book Talk | Michael Glass | Cracked Foundations: Debt and Inequality in Suburban America,
Join the Institute for Public Knowledge on Wednesday, November 18 (5:30-7:00 PM) for an event with Michael Glass. He will discuss his book, Cracked Foundations: Debt and Inequality in Suburban America, with R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy and Andrew Needham.
Michael Glass is an Associate Professor of History at Boston College. His work examines how financial systems generate inequality and shape everyday life, from housing and education to environmental risk. His first book, Cracked Foundations: Debt and Inequality in Suburban America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025), received the 2026 Lewis Mumford Prize for Best Book in American Planning History from the Society for American City and Regional Planning History. His work has been featured in a variety of popular and scholarly outlets, including The Atlantic, Phenomenal World, The Washington Post, and the Journal of American History. Before graduate school, he worked as a public high school teacher in New York City.
R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy is an associate professor in the Sociology of Education program in the Department of Applied Statistics, Social Science and Humanities at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. He holds a PhD in Public Policy and Sociology from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI (2008) and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA (2000). His central line of research concentrates on educational inequality particularly focused on the intersecting roles of race, class, and place. His first book, Inequality in the Promised Land: Race, Resources, and Suburban Schooling examined the experiences of low income and racial minority families’ attempts at accessing school-related resources in an affluent suburb. He is currently fielding a multi-site ethnographic study in Westchester County that examines residents’ experiences with housing and schools. His larger research interests include race and racism, gender justice, and community mobilization. His research has appeared in multiple edited volumes and academic journals such as Urban Education, American Educational Research Journal, and Ethnic & Racial Studies. He is a frequent media contributor and public speaker. His insights have been included in Ebony Magazine, The Grio, The Root, US World News Report and on channels such as CNN and Al Jazeera.
Andrew Needham is an associate professor of history at New York University, specializing in the history of the American West. He is the author of Power Lines: Phoenix and the Making of the Modern Southwest, which explores the transformation of Phoenix and the Navajo nation in the years after World War II. The book tells the story of the far-reaching environmental and social inequalities of metropolitan growth and the roots of our contemporary coal-fueled climate change crisis. It received five book prizes, including the George Perkins Marsh Prize for the best book in environmental history, the Caughey Western History Association Prize, and the David J. Weber and Bill Clements Prize for best nonfiction work on the American Southwest.