Susan Saegert
Encyclopedia
Susan Saegert is Professor of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University (Peabody College) in Nashville, TN.
Prior to her current appointment in 2008, Dr. Saegert was Director of the Center for Human Environments (CHE) and Professor of Environmental Psychology
at the CUNY Graduate Center
where she has worked since receiving her PhD in Social Psychology
from the University of Michigan
in 1974. She was also the first director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society at the CUNY Graduate Center
. Her early research focused on crowding and environmental stressors. She then began to study the relationship between housing and human development and well being, as well as women and environments. These interests involved her with a team of architects, planners and housing finance experts in developing a plan for Downtown Denver
that increased residential uses and amenities, which is evidenced in the cityscape of Denver today.
Her research in inner city communities led her to focus less on how housing conditions can affect residents and more on how communities can affect housing conditions. With colleagues at CHE
in the Housing Environments Research Group (HERG), she and Gary Winkel
have worked in partnership with community organizations and coalitions to understand how to successfully improve distressed housing and neighborhoods in New York City
. This work has also resulted in a book on social capital co-edited with two political scientists: S. Saegert, J.P. Thompson, & M. R. Warren (Eds) Social capital and poor communities. New York: Russell Sage, 2001.
In 2007 she was quoted in David Gonzalez's New York Times' article "Risky loans help build ghost town of new homes" noting that in New York a trend is developing where “whole neighborhoods are wiped out, crime increases, the neighborhood’s reputation goes down, quality of life is undermined, and people can’t sell their houses,” due to the accessibility of adjustable rate loans and bad mortgages.
Her professional activities have included serving as president of Division 34 on Population and Environment of the American Psychological Association, co-chairing the Environmental Design Research Association
, and more recently serving on the American Psychological Association
's Task Force on Urban Psychology. She has served on the editorial boards of Environment & Behavior and the Journal of Environmental Psychology
for most of the last 20 years. With Gary Winkel
, she wrote the Annual Review of Environmental Psychology for 1990.
Saegert, S., & Evans, G. ( 2003). Poverty, Housing Niches, and Health in the U.S.. Journal of Social Issues, 59, 569- 590.
Saegert, S., Klitzman, S., Freudenberg, N., Cooperman-Mrozek, & Nassar, S. (2003). Healthy Housing: A structured review of US interventions to improve health by modifying housing in the United States, 1990-2000. American Journal of Public Health, 93, 1471-1478.
Saegert, S. & Winkel, G.H. (2004). Crime, social capital and community participation. American Journal of Community Psychology, 34 (3-4): 219-133.
Saegert, S. & Benitez, L. (2005) Limited Equity Housing Cooperatives: Defining a Niche in the Low Income Housing Market . Journal of Planning Literature 19:, 427-239.
Saegert, S., (2000). Urban Communities. In A. Kraut (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Psychology. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
Saegert, S. & Clark, H. (2005). Women and housing. In Housing: Foundation of a New Social Agenda. Bratt, R., Hartman, C., & Stone, M. (Eds.), Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Saegert, Susan & Evans, Gary. (1999) Residential crowding in the context of inner city poverty. In Wapner, S.,J.Demick,H.Minamik & T. Yamamoto (Eds) Theoretical perspectives in environment-behavior research: Underlying assumptions, research problems, and relationships. New York: Plenum.
Saegert, Susan & Winkel, Gary. (1999) CDCs, Social Capital and Housing Quality. Shelterforce, March/April 22–24
Saegert, Susan, Phillip Thompson, Robert Engle, Jocelyn Sargent. (1999) "Stretched Thin: Employment, parenting, and social capital among mothers in public housing. New York: Foundation for Child Development Working Paper Series
Saegert, S., & Winkel, G. (1998). Social Capital and the Revitalization of New York City's Distressed Inner City Housing. Housing Policy Debate,9(1)17-60. Washington, D.C.: Fannie Mae Foundation Mae Foundation Mae.
Saegert, S., & McCarthy, D. E. (1998). Gender and Housing for the Elderly: Sorting through the accumulations of a lifetime. In R. J. Scheidt & P.G. Windley (Eds.), Environment and Aging Theory: A focus on Housing. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Saegert, S., (1998). In Rem Housing. In W. Van Vliet (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Housing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Saegert, S., and Winkel, G. (1997). Social capital formation in low income housing. New York, Housing Environments Research Group of the Center for Human Environments, City University of New York, New York.
Saegert, S. (1997). What is the situation: A comment on the Fourth Japan/USA seminar on Environment-Behavior Research. In S. Wapner, & J. Demick (Eds.), Handbook of Japan-US Environment-Behavior Research Towards a Transactional Approach. New York: Plenum.
White, A., & Saegert, S. (1996). Return from Abandonment: The Tenant Interim Lease program and the development of low-income cooperatives in New York City’s most neglected neighborhoods. In van Vliet, W. (Ed.), Affordable Housing and Urban Development in the U.S.: Learning from Failure and Success, Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
Saegert, S. & Winkel, G. (1996). Paths to empowerment: Organizing at home. American Journal of Community Psychology, 24, 517-550.
Leavitt, J. & Saegert, S. (1990) From Abandonment to Hope: Community Households in Harlem. New York: Columbia University Press.
Saegert, S. & Winkel, G. (1990). Environmental Psychology. Annual Review of Psychology, 41, 441-477.
Prior to her current appointment in 2008, Dr. Saegert was Director of the Center for Human Environments (CHE) and Professor of Environmental Psychology
Environmental psychology
Environmental psychology is an interdisciplinary field focused on the interplay between humans and their surroundings. The field defines the term environment broadly, encompassing natural environments, social settings, built environments, learning environments, and informational environments...
at the CUNY Graduate Center
CUNY Graduate Center
The Graduate Center of the City University of New York brings together graduate education, advanced research, and public programming to midtown Manhattan hosting 4,600 students, 33 doctoral programs, 7 master's programs, and 30 research centers and institutes...
where she has worked since receiving her PhD in Social Psychology
Social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
from the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
in 1974. She was also the first director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society at the CUNY Graduate Center
CUNY Graduate Center
The Graduate Center of the City University of New York brings together graduate education, advanced research, and public programming to midtown Manhattan hosting 4,600 students, 33 doctoral programs, 7 master's programs, and 30 research centers and institutes...
. Her early research focused on crowding and environmental stressors. She then began to study the relationship between housing and human development and well being, as well as women and environments. These interests involved her with a team of architects, planners and housing finance experts in developing a plan for Downtown Denver
Downtown Denver
Downtown Denver is the main financial, commercial, and entertainment district in Denver, Colorado. There is over of office space in downtown Denver, with 130,000 workers....
that increased residential uses and amenities, which is evidenced in the cityscape of Denver today.
Her research in inner city communities led her to focus less on how housing conditions can affect residents and more on how communities can affect housing conditions. With colleagues at CHE
Che
Che is a Spanish diminutive interjection commonly used in Argentina and Uruguay. A form of colloquial slang used in a vocative sense as "friend", and thus loosely corresponds to expressions such as "mate", "pal", "man", "bro", or "dude"; as used by various English speakers...
in the Housing Environments Research Group (HERG), she and Gary Winkel
Gary Winkel
Gary Winkel is a Professor of Environmental Psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York He received his Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Washington with a minor in quantitative methods....
have worked in partnership with community organizations and coalitions to understand how to successfully improve distressed housing and neighborhoods in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. This work has also resulted in a book on social capital co-edited with two political scientists: S. Saegert, J.P. Thompson, & M. R. Warren (Eds) Social capital and poor communities. New York: Russell Sage, 2001.
In 2007 she was quoted in David Gonzalez's New York Times' article "Risky loans help build ghost town of new homes" noting that in New York a trend is developing where “whole neighborhoods are wiped out, crime increases, the neighborhood’s reputation goes down, quality of life is undermined, and people can’t sell their houses,” due to the accessibility of adjustable rate loans and bad mortgages.
Her professional activities have included serving as president of Division 34 on Population and Environment of the American Psychological Association, co-chairing the Environmental Design Research Association
Environmental Design Research Association
The Environmental Design Research Association is an international, interdisciplinary organization founded in 1968 by design professionals, social scientists, students, educators, and facility managers...
, and more recently serving on the American Psychological Association
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...
's Task Force on Urban Psychology. She has served on the editorial boards of Environment & Behavior and the Journal of Environmental Psychology
Journal of Environmental Psychology
The Journal of Environmental Psychology is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Elsevier since 1980. Since 2002, its editor in chief is Robert Gifford . The journal reports scientific research on human interactions with the built and natural environment, with an emphasis on the individual...
for most of the last 20 years. With Gary Winkel
Gary Winkel
Gary Winkel is a Professor of Environmental Psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York He received his Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Washington with a minor in quantitative methods....
, she wrote the Annual Review of Environmental Psychology for 1990.
Selected Recent Publications
Saegert, S. (2006) Building Civic Capacity in Urban Neighborhoods: An Empirically Grounded Anatomy. Journal of Urban AffairsSaegert, S., & Evans, G. ( 2003). Poverty, Housing Niches, and Health in the U.S.. Journal of Social Issues, 59, 569- 590.
Saegert, S., Klitzman, S., Freudenberg, N., Cooperman-Mrozek, & Nassar, S. (2003). Healthy Housing: A structured review of US interventions to improve health by modifying housing in the United States, 1990-2000. American Journal of Public Health, 93, 1471-1478.
Saegert, S. & Winkel, G.H. (2004). Crime, social capital and community participation. American Journal of Community Psychology, 34 (3-4): 219-133.
Saegert, S. & Benitez, L. (2005) Limited Equity Housing Cooperatives: Defining a Niche in the Low Income Housing Market . Journal of Planning Literature 19:, 427-239.
Saegert, S., (2000). Urban Communities. In A. Kraut (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Psychology. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
Saegert, S. & Clark, H. (2005). Women and housing. In Housing: Foundation of a New Social Agenda. Bratt, R., Hartman, C., & Stone, M. (Eds.), Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Saegert, Susan & Evans, Gary. (1999) Residential crowding in the context of inner city poverty. In Wapner, S.,J.Demick,H.Minamik & T. Yamamoto (Eds) Theoretical perspectives in environment-behavior research: Underlying assumptions, research problems, and relationships. New York: Plenum.
Saegert, Susan & Winkel, Gary. (1999) CDCs, Social Capital and Housing Quality. Shelterforce, March/April 22–24
Saegert, Susan, Phillip Thompson, Robert Engle, Jocelyn Sargent. (1999) "Stretched Thin: Employment, parenting, and social capital among mothers in public housing. New York: Foundation for Child Development Working Paper Series
Saegert, S., & Winkel, G. (1998). Social Capital and the Revitalization of New York City's Distressed Inner City Housing. Housing Policy Debate,9(1)17-60. Washington, D.C.: Fannie Mae Foundation Mae Foundation Mae.
Saegert, S., & McCarthy, D. E. (1998). Gender and Housing for the Elderly: Sorting through the accumulations of a lifetime. In R. J. Scheidt & P.G. Windley (Eds.), Environment and Aging Theory: A focus on Housing. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Saegert, S., (1998). In Rem Housing. In W. Van Vliet (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Housing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Saegert, S., and Winkel, G. (1997). Social capital formation in low income housing. New York, Housing Environments Research Group of the Center for Human Environments, City University of New York, New York.
Saegert, S. (1997). What is the situation: A comment on the Fourth Japan/USA seminar on Environment-Behavior Research. In S. Wapner, & J. Demick (Eds.), Handbook of Japan-US Environment-Behavior Research Towards a Transactional Approach. New York: Plenum.
White, A., & Saegert, S. (1996). Return from Abandonment: The Tenant Interim Lease program and the development of low-income cooperatives in New York City’s most neglected neighborhoods. In van Vliet, W. (Ed.), Affordable Housing and Urban Development in the U.S.: Learning from Failure and Success, Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
Saegert, S. & Winkel, G. (1996). Paths to empowerment: Organizing at home. American Journal of Community Psychology, 24, 517-550.
Leavitt, J. & Saegert, S. (1990) From Abandonment to Hope: Community Households in Harlem. New York: Columbia University Press.
Saegert, S. & Winkel, G. (1990). Environmental Psychology. Annual Review of Psychology, 41, 441-477.