City of Disorder

About the Author

Alex S. Vitale teaches criminology, sociology of law, and political sociology in the Sociology Department at Brooklyn College. He is deputy chair of the department and administers its MA program. He received his BA in urban anthropology from Hampshire College in 1989 and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the CUNY Graduate Center in 2001. From 1990-1993 he worked at the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness, where his portfolio included developing housing policy, defending the civil rights of people living outdoors, and advocating on behalf of social services for the poor in the local and state budgets. During this period he experienced an early grassroots backlash against the homeless embodied by the election of former police chief Frank Jordan to the mayor’s office. Soon after taking office Jordan implemented a broad “quality of life” crackdown against the homeless called Operation Matrix,” which utilized zero tolerance enforcement of minor legal violations to harass and intimidate people living and congregating in public spaces. In 1993, Vitale moved to New York City to attend graduate school and was soon confronted by a similar dynamic in the election of Rudolph Giuliani. His book City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics, documents the roots of the anti-homeless backlash in new York and ties it to critical failures in previous democratic mayoral administrations. He has also published in Urban Affairs Review, Contemporary Sociology, Policing and Society, Mobilization, and Police Practice and Research. In addition, Prof. Vitale serves as a Senior College Officer on the Executive Council of the CUNY faculty and professional staff union the PSC-CUNY, where he helps direct political and legislative affairs.

Education

2001: Ph.D. Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, NY

1989: BA, Anthropology and Urban Studies, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA.

Books

City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics. NYU Press, 2008

Gaston Donate, Corey Robin, Roberta Satow, and Alex Vitale eds. People, Power, and Politics. New York: Pearson. 2002.

Articles

“The Command and Control and Miami Models at the 2004 Republican National Convention: New Forms of Policing Protests,” Mobilization. 12 (4) December, 2007

“From Negotiated Management to Managed Control: How the NYPD Polices Protests.” Policing and Society. September, 2005.

“Innovation and Institutionalization: Factors in the Development of ‘Quality of Life” Policing in New York City.” Policing and Society. June, 2005.

Sharon Zukin et al. “From Coney Island to Las Vegas in the Urban Imaginary: Discursive Practices of Growth and Decline,” Urban Affairs Review. May 1998.

“Taming Urban Fear: The Politics of Community and Homelessness,” Found Object. Issue #7. Winter, 1998.

Reports

Rights and Wrongs at the RNC: A Special Report about Police and Protest at the Republican national Convention. New York Civil Liberties Union. August, 2005.

Arresting Protest: A Special Report of the New York Civil Liberties Union. New York Civil Liberties Union. 2003

“The Politics of “Quality of Life:” Crime, Homelessness, and Disorder in East New York.” Briefing Paper for the Open Society Institute. August 2001.

Book Reviews and Short Articles

“Citizens, Cops, and Power: Recognizing the Limits of Community. By Steve Herbert. Police Practices and Research. Forthcoming.

“Reclaiming the Streets: Surveillance, Social Control and the City, by Roy Coleman.” Contemporary Sociology. 2007

“Three Strikes for Three Strikes.” 2002. Radical Society. No.2, November.

“Fighting Against the Rockefeller Drug Laws.” 2002. Left Turn.” No. 7, October/November.

“New York City” in Violence in America: An Encyclopedia. Ronald Gottesman, editor. New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1999.

“Writing the Body Grotesque,” Culture Shock. Spring 1995.

“Fear of a Black Culture,” Culture Shock. Spring 1995.

“Homes Not Jails: The Thanksgiving Day Takeovers,” Z Magazine. February 1993.

Professional Associations

American Sociological Association

American Society of Criminology

Law and Society Association