Alumni-Faculty Forum: Big City Lights…and Frights: Urban Development and Economic Inequality

Location:  McCosh Hall, Room 10

Moderator:

Frederick Wherry *00 *04
Vice Dean for Diversity and Inclusion, Office of the Dean of Faculty; Townsend Martin, Class of 1917, Professor of Sociology, Princeton University.

Panelists:

Clifford L. Karchmer ’68
Special Studies Director, Jefferson Waterman International

Carlton A. Brown ’73
Principal and CEO Direct Invest Development, LLC              

Steve Adler ’78
Former Mayor, City of Austin, Texas

Robert Doar ’83
President, American Enterprise Institute

Natalie Tung ’18
Co-Founder and Executive Director, HomeWorks Trenton Inc.

Moderator

Frederick Wherry *00 *04
Frederick “Fred” Wherry founded the Debt Collection Lab (debtcollectionlab.org) and the Dignity + Debt Network (dignityanddebt.org), where he works on issues of economic justice. He is the author, editor or co-editor of nine books, including “Credit Where It’s Due: Rethinking Financial Citizenship” (with Kristin Seefeldt and Anthony Alvarez), “The Oxford Handbook of Consumption” (with Ian Woodward), and “Money Talks” (with Nina Bandelj and Viviana Zelizer) and is currently working on a new book, “What Debtors Deserve.” He has served as president of the Eastern Sociological Society and the Social Science History Association, and in 2022 he was appointed to the Wealth Disparity Task Force by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. At Stanford University Press, he co-edits the book series Culture and Economic Life. He joined the Princeton faculty in 2017.

Panelists

Clifford L. Karchmer ’68
Clifford Karchmer is a nationally recognized law enforcement consultant and researcher. He is special studies director for the D.C. firm Jefferson Waterman International, focusing on due diligence services to foreign executives and governments. Earlier, he was subject matter expert for Booz Allen, overseeing police outreach to major Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initiatives. For almost two decades, he was director of program development at the Police Executive Research Forum, where he led investigative reform initiatives for Department of Justice (DOJ), Treasury, and DHS agencies, developing strategic and operational guides for police responses to a broad spectrum of violent crime and other challenges. As a research scientist for Battelle, he specialized in white-collar crime. Karchmer has directed over 40 projects for a broad range of government agencies, foundations and private clients. He has testified twice before Congress, and most recently led outreach to national associations for the landmark RAND-DOJ study on preventing mass shootings.

Carlton A. Brown ’73
Carlton Brown is an urbanist and longtime thought leader in the development of sustainable mixed income communities focused on creating places with enhanced opportunity structures to transform people’s lives. His work demonstrates that investment in sustainable human settlement is the most important strategy for stemming climate change, adapting to climate change and creating resilient equitable communities. Brown has come to call his work the creation of restorative human settlement and has developed nine principles that guide the work of his firm. The first of these principles, “ubuntu,” is the most important, meaning “I am because you are, so first do no harm.” His developments in Harlem — before Harlem was “hip” — Rwanda, Birmingham, Atlanta and Minneapolis provide an alternative road map for healing human community. This strategy of sustainable restorative development provides returns on human, social and cultural capital while preserving environmental resources for future generations and returning risk adjusted market rates of return for financial investors.

Steve Adler ’78
Steve Adler was Austin’s mayor from 2015 to 2023. During his two terms, Adler focused on equity, infrastructure, public safety and preserving the city’s magical quality of life. He led his city through multiple natural disasters. Austin’s COVID mortality rate was half that of Texas and the U.S. Austin now has $22 billion in mobility projects underway and last year led the country in building new housing. One of the safest big U.S. cities, Austin successfully reimagined public safety. Austin is aggressively changing its systems and institutions to provide equity and justice for all its residents. Adler helped lead the United States Conference of Mayors and the Democratic Mayors Association and was honored by Politico, Living Cities and, the Anti-Defamation League, among many others. Prior to public service, Adler was an attorney litigating civil rights and real estate cases. He is married to Diane, father to three daughters and “Bup” to four grandkids.

Robert Doar ’83
Robert Doar became the 12th president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), one of the nation’s oldest and most respected public policy think tanks, in July 2019. Since becoming president of AEI, he has recruited dozens of leading scholars and fellows across multiple issue areas and launched a new research division focused on social, cultural, and constitutional studies. By supporting the extensive work of AEI scholars in areas including foreign and defense policy, education, the reform of key institutions, the US economy and poverty studies, he has helped to solidify AEI’s position as a leading voice on the major issues facing the United States. Doar joined AEI in 2014 to lead the Institute’s poverty studies program after serving for more than 18 years in leadership positions in the social service programs of New York state and New York City.

Natalie Tung ’18
Growing up in a numbers-driven public school system in Hong Kong, Natalie Tung had an unhealthy relationship with learning, which changed when she had the opportunity to attend a boarding school in New Jersey. More importantly, living with 40 girls at such a young age empowered her to become more empathetic and confident, and these women are still her support system today. While taking “Special Topics in Social Entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurship for the Idealist” as a sophomore at Princeton, Tung started HomeWorks, a free, community-based after-school residential program, with the idea of replicating this experience for girls in marginalized communities around the world. Since 2016, she has built a diverse team of eight staff members and over 50 volunteers. Together, they have run six programs with 40 participants and raised over $3 million in cash and in-kind donations. Tung and HomeWorks have been recognized by organizations including McKinsey & Company, Barclays, Camelback Ventures, The Rachael Ray Show, Princeton University and more.