FI Graduate Fellow, HASTAC Scholars Co-Director

Hilary Wilson’s research broadly examines the history of economic development policy in U.S. cities and the role of urban governance in (re)producing socio-spatial inequalities along the lines of race, gender, and class. In light of recent theorizations of financialization and its impacts on older industrial cities, her dissertation research traces the material and discursive dimensions of debt-financed development in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She focuses particularly on how ideologies of race and gender, as well as alternative visions of economic development, have shaped the city’s fiscal policy since the 1970s. Before pursuing her PhD, Hilary worked and volunteered in various capacities in Milwaukee’s nonprofit, public, and cooperative sectors, and was a founding board member of the Milwaukee Community Land Trust, the city’s first land trust devoted to providing permanently affordable housing for low-income Milwaukee residents. She holds an undergraduate degree in Spanish and Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA.