US urban sociology continues to be dominated by the Chicago School's theories and
methodological approaches. While yielding valuable insight regarding the importance of
place, this body of work reproduces racism through explicit and implicit appeals to White-
centered sensibility and desirability. In this chapter, we examine two specific Chicago
School-inspired theories and related empirical work—spatial assimilation and place
stratification. We draw from Du Boisian, racial capitalism, and other critical perspectives to …