Neil Smith was born in Leith, Scotland in 1954, and attended the University of St.
Andrews for his undergraduate education, as well as Johns Hopkins University for his
Ph.D. He resided in New York City most of his life, and worked as a professor at
Johns Hopkins University, Rutgers University, and the City University of New York
(CUNY). At CUNY, Smith founded and directed the Center for Place, Culture and
Politics.
Smith was a prominent Urban Geographer, contributing to theories of the social
production of space, gentrification, and Marxist theories of urban development. His
book, American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization, a
critical biography of former American Geographical Society Director Isaiah Bowman
from a modern geopolitical marxist lens, won the 2003 LA Times Book Prize.
In addition to the LA Times book prize, Smith was also awarded the American
Association of Geographers (AAG) Distinguished Scholarship Award, the AAG Globe Book
Award, and the Guggenheim Fellowship for Social Science.
