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University Communications

University of Richmond administrator's dissertation on public housing wins national awards

February 23, 2007

Amy Howard, associate director of The Center for Civic Engagement at University of Richmond, has won three awards for a dissertation titled "More Than Shelter: Community, Identity and Spatial Politics in San Francisco Public Housing, 1938-2000."

In January, Howard's work was named Best Dissertation of 2005 by the Urban History Association. Previously, it received an honorable mention in an American Studies Association competition and the Distinguished Dissertation in the Humanities Award from the College of William and Mary—where Howard earned her doctorate in American studies.

The dissertation focuses on three public housing projects in San Francisco: North Beach Place, Ping Yuen in Chinatown and Valencia Gardens in the Mission District. Howard challenged negative stereotypes of public housing by showing how residents banded together across racial and ethnic lines to rescue their communities from mismanagement, rising crime and other problems.