Prentiss Dantzler

Assistant Professor
17128 - 700 University Ave, 17th floor

Campus

Cross-Appointments

School of Cities
Infrastructure Institute

Fields of Study

Areas of Interest

  • Housing Assistance Across the GTA – This project explores the dynamics facing social housing residents and administrators across the city. Using administrative data and interviews with tenants and administrators from the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, this study analyzes the effects of housing affordability and neighbourhood change on residential mobility and community satisfaction.
  • HOAs and Residential Exclusion – This project explores the role of homeowners’ associations and subsequent patterns of residential exclusion. Using data on HOAs, mortgage lending, and neighbourhood dynamics, this project analyses the relationship between HOAs and patterns of residential segregation.
  • Racial Capitalism and Urban Theory – This project explores the omission of racialization processes within urban theory by using racial capitalism as a theoretical intervention. It places urban studies in conversation with theories from Black Sociology, Black Geographies, and Black Studies as a way to unearth the iterative relationship between race and class/racism and capitalism in producing the urban environment.

Biography

Dr. Prentiss Dantzler joined the University of Toronto (UofT) as an Assistant Professor of Sociology in 2021. Previously, he held faculty appointments at Georgia State University (Urban Studies) and Colorado College (Sociology). He is also affiliated with the School of Cities, the Infrastructure Institute, the Centre for Global Social Policy and the Graduate Department of Geography and Planning at UofT. He received his Ph.D. in Public Affairs with a concentration in Community Development from Rutgers University-Camden. He also holds an M.P.A. (Urban and Regional Planning and GIS) from West Chester University and a B.S. (Energy, Business and Finance) from Penn State University.

His research sits at the nexus of urban poverty, neighbourhood change, race and ethnic relations, housing and community development. As an interdisciplinary scholar, Dr. Dantzler explores how and why neighbourhoods change and how policymakers and communities create and react to those changes. He currently serves as a Deputy Editor for City and Community and on the editorial boards of the Journal of Urban Affairs, Metropolitics, and Housing Policy Debate. He also serves as Secretary/Treasurer for the Community and Urban Sociology Section at the American Sociological Association and as Treasurer to the Urban Affairs Association.

Recent Publications

Silver, D., Dantzler, P., & Hope, K. (2023). Residential preferences, place alienation, and neighborhood satisfaction: A conjoint survey experiment in Toronto’s inner suburbs. Journal of Urban Affairs, 1-25.

Dantzler, P. A. (2023). Racial capitalism and anti-Blackness beyond the urban core. Journal of Race, Ethnicity and the City, 1-8.

Dantzler, P. A., & Peron, M. A. (2023). Towards a praxis of manifesting spatial imaginaries. Dialogues in Urban Research, 1(3), 226-230.