https://www.jasonspicer.org/biography-1 daily 0.75 2025-09-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec73a58ef0c627053e2a346/aa794dfe-74c4-45dd-aae4-31b3a72f3261/UTF-8signal-2025-05-03-10-09-03-455.jpg About - About ME Who am I? Academically, I am an interdisciplinary social scientist by training. I hold a master’s degree in city planning from MIT, with a focus on housing, community and economic development. I also hold a Ph.D. in political economy from MIT. Personally, in terms of my background: my early life was spent on the road traveling the Eastern US and Southern Ontario (Canada) with my parents’ itinerant religious ministry, with a home base in New York State. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa and with general and departmental honors as a scholarship and Pell Grant student at the Johns Hopkins University, with a bachelor’s degree in both Economics and in Sociology, as well as a certificate in Comparative and International Development, I won a U.C. Regents fellowship to begin a Ph.D. in Sociology at U.C. Berkeley, which I ultimately did not complete. This “failure” taught me to adopt a growth (rather than a fixed) mindset, something which often comes up in my teaching and research. After dropping out of Berkeley, I moved to New York, NY, where I worked for 15 years in the global urban development industry as a researcher, analyst, and strategist on projects and with clients across five continents, before returning to the academy to earn two graduate degrees at MIT, thereafter joining the University of Toronto faculty for five years, before moving home to New York. Long active in civic life, I have been a non-profit board member, and worked with governments and social/community organizations in a wide variety of advisory and consulting capacities. I have also been a member-owner and active governance participant in a variety of community and socially owned businesses. When not working, you might find me roasting my own coffee in Queens in the self-managed housing cooperative where I live. I am also a former competitor, judge, and official in the sport of figure skating, in which I was a Double Gold Medalist (USFS Senior Free Skating Test Medalist). (photo credit: D. Yaskil) https://www.jasonspicer.org/publications daily 0.75 2026-03-17 https://www.jasonspicer.org/home daily 1.0 2025-08-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec73a58ef0c627053e2a346/6b586f6f-d448-4003-b756-34381924f4d4/UTF-8IMG_20250424_154104.jpg Home - Jason Spicer, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College at the City University of New York (CUNY) and in the Social Welfare PhD program at the Graduate School and University Center (the Graduate Center) at CUNY. He was previously an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto (St. George Campus), where he founded and directed the Community Economies Lab. His work has been published in a number of leading social science journals and featured in media outlets such as The Washington Post, PBS Newshour, The Conversation, CBC, Governance, Grist, Fast Company, and Foreign Policy. Before becoming a professor, Jason had a 15-year career in the global urban development industry, based in New York City, working with local, national, and trans-national private sector, third sector, and governmental organizations in a variety of capacities. His research and teaching primarily focus on: (a) the potential of alternative economic models, such as cooperatives /social and solidarity economy organizational forms, community wealth building strategies, and community economic development approaches, to create a more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable economy; and (b) the role policy and political processes play in making these models possible. Topics and themes: social and community entrepreneurship; cooperatives, alternative enterprises, and the social economy; economic democracy; institutions and organizations; housing and community economic development; community wealth building; social movements; social innovation; international and comparative political economy. https://www.jasonspicer.org/contact daily 0.75 2024-12-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec73a58ef0c627053e2a346/1602887926657-O9UDG3U989ETW1NSCK9S/CLT_Toronto.jpg Contact - Contact me email: jason dot spicer at baruch dot cuny dot edu office phone: (six four six) six six zero - six eight four three office address: 135 east 22nd street new york ny 10010 united states bsky profile page image: a residence on the toronto islands land trust (photo credit: spicer) https://www.jasonspicer.org/teaching daily 0.75 2025-04-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec73a58ef0c627053e2a346/1602891792147-3M57LFUHRMCF7WU61NFA/Fascism.jpg Teaching - Courses Taught MPA/MIA Capstone (CUNY Baruch) Organizing and Entrepreneurship for Social Change (CUNY Graduate Center) Social and Community Entrepreneurship (CUNY Baruch) Urban, Regional, + Community Economic Development (Toronto) Urban Geography, Planning, + Political Processes (Toronto) Planning Decision Methods II: Quantitative + Technical (Toronto) Economic Development Planning (MIT) Research Design + Methods for Thesis Writers (MIT) Urban Economics for Planners (MIT) Independent Studies: Alternative Enterprises (Toronto, MIT) Image: Make the Road NYC Demonstrations (Photo Credit: Spicer) https://www.jasonspicer.org/research daily 0.75 2025-11-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec73a58ef0c627053e2a346/1625144277165-RSCLKSK9YSKPGMUJRT7G/Rochdale.png Research - Jason’s research examines social and community entrepreneurial practices and organizational models across a wide range of contexts and settings. He often works in partnership with community organizations, governments, and other stakeholders. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, projects have examined: worker and consumer cooperative development; alternative holding structures for municipal data; employee ownership transitions; sustainable community finance models; transformative climate adaptation in manufactured housing cooperatives; living wage campaigns; autonomously networked organizational models; hybrid enterprises (e.g. beneficial trusts, community contribution/interest companies); social and local procurement policies for disadvantaged business enterprises; social and solidarity economy (l’économie sociale et solidaire) sectoral strategies; minority-owned and LGBTQ+ business clusters and districts; comprehensive community-led revitalization policies/plans; community land trust policy. These initiatives have variably involved applied, implementation-related research, such as community-engaged policy memoranda and business plans, as well as more theoretical and empirical academic research, examining how political and socio-economic forces shape and condition comparative success and failure. His award-winning research has been published or is accepted for forthcoming publication in outlets such as Socio-Economic Review, Perspectives on Politics, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Sociology Compass, Voluntas: the International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, the LERA (Labor and Employment Relations Association) Annual Research Volume, Economic Development Quarterly, the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy, and Society, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, the Journal of Urban Affairs, Urban Affairs Review, the Journal of Planning Education and Research, the Journal of the American Planning Association, Housing Policy Debate, the International Journal of Housing Policy, Metropolitics, and the Stanford Social Innovation Review. His first book, which examines co-operative enterprise systems in different countries, was published by Oxford University Press in 2024, and his second book is under contract for publication with Stanford University Press. He is also North American Co-Editor of Local Economy, and is a member of the Editorial Board of Studies in Comparative International Development. Images: The modern cooperative enterprise movement often traces its roots to Rochdale, England (site pictured), where the first stable cooperative organizational form and business model was developed and institutionalized in the mid-1800s, and diffused globally. Early visitors, who came from around the world to learn from and study the model, included Friedrich Engels (whose name appears in the site’s visitors’ book, also pictured. Photo credits: Spicer)