Viktor Bensus

About me

I am an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). As an urban sociologist, I engage with urban governance, civic engagement, housing policies, and social inequalities research. My research examines how racial and class inequalities are reproduced in participatory decision-making processes at the local scale.

My current research project compares the participatory process for zoning changes in two New York City Neighborhoods with dissimilar ethnoracial and class composition. Using interviews, observations, and content analysis of archival materials, I study how communities organized to influence and oppose plans the city framed as social justice interventions. My dissertation is funded by the Russell Sage Foundation.

My previous work has been published in City, Revista INVI, Frontera Norte, and Debates en Sociologia.

Before UMKC, I completed my Ph.D. at The Graduate Center, CUNY, and a Master’s in City Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, and worked as an instructor and researcher at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.

I grew up in Lima, Peru.