Greetings! My name is Adrianne Sykes, and I was born and reared in St. Albans, Queens. I now reside in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. I am married to a supportive husband, Donald, whom I thank for his patience with the pursuit of my degree. I have two young adult children, Donasia, and Isayah. My oldest, Donasia, currently works at Hunter College. She graduated from Syracuse University which I also attended. My son, Isayah, attended Medgar Evers. He is in the process of working on several projects and is interested in starting his own business. When I am not working or going to school, I enjoy reading, relaxing, and watching horror movies as well as documentaries. In addition, I enjoy spending time with my family and close friends.

            I am an undergraduate student at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies (SLU) majoring in Urban and Community Studies with a concentration in Urban Studies. During my attendance at SLU, I took many classes that piqued my interest in worker rights and social justice. One of these classes was URB 200, Social Justice and the City, which examined various struggles for justice, rights, and equity in areas such as affordable housing, homelessness, and gentrification. Cities are becoming more densely populated and are central to the lives of those who reside in them by providing services, jobs, and other necessities. As a result, social justice, rights, and equity in achieving these goals and receiving one’s fair share of resources are critical to understanding the dynamics within cities.

            The two essays that I present on this platform examine these concepts. In Struggle for the Right to a Just City, I wrote about readings by David Harvey, Cruz Potter, and R.E. Phal who examined urban renewal, urban development, and social justice. These articles referenced different theories about social justice. For example, in The Right to the Just City, David Harvey’s position about theories on social justice is that they need to be relevant to contemporary issues such as neoliberalism’s impact on globalization. Whereas Pahl, in Whose City? discussed the responsibility of sociologists and urban planners in providing equity to all citizens in the urban renewal process. In my essay, “Affordable Housing: Redistributing Public Space and Resources for Housing”, I wrote about the vertical sprawl Samuel Stein discussed in his article, In Faulty Towers: Great Sprawl in the Sky”. The struggle to find affordable housing is impossible if more and more developers cater to the one percent while leaving the working and middle class out of the housing market. Both these essays resonate with the theme of the course.

            I have enjoyed learning about urban studies, and this course has provided me with a thorough understanding of the meaning of justice. It has also helped me to appreciate the significance of equity and distributive justice in urban development. I plan to continue my studies by pursuing a Master of Arts in Psychology at the School of Professional Studies in the fall. I look forward to exploring the aspects of Organization/Industrial Psychology and how I could use it to further equity in the workplace.

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