About

Nina Martin, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography & Environment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she also serves as the Director of Research Curricula in the Office of Undergraduate Research. Her research focuses on urban politics, economic and community development, immigration, local political conflicts, restructuring of urban labor markets, management of nonprofit organizations, and the racialization of urban space. She employs mixed methods to explore emerging urban social issues, aiming to produce engaged research that addresses the needs of academics, policymakers, planners, and research subjects alike. Her current project is a book titled 'Pretentious Urbanism: How Progressive Cities Recreate Inequities,' which draws on critical and feminist geographies, development studies, and ethnic studies to interpret urban policy and planning. Martin's academic journey began with a BA from McGill University, followed by an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has taught courses in urban geography and globalization at UNC, including advanced seminars and classes on global cities and urban political geography. Her background includes a childhood in Dublin and Halifax, Nova Scotia, with migration experiences that have shaped her interest in how migrants establish themselves in sprawling metropolises. Her personal and professional experiences have motivated her research on migration impacts, urban labor markets, civil society responses to political conflicts, the informal economy, and transnational migrant lives. In addition to her academic pursuits, she is involved in community advocacy through her role on the Durham Workers' Rights Commission and engages in sketch comedy and musical performances in her free time.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Management
• Regional science
• Economic geography
• Public administration
• Visual arts
• Clinical psychology
• Psychotherapist
• Art
• Engineering
• Civil engineering
• Business
• Developmental psychology
• Advertising
• Psychiatry
• Psychology
• Economics
• Literature
• Law

Selected publications

• Inplacement, not just displacement: Urban assemblages and neighborhood stability in the face of gentrification

  UNC Libraries · 2026-03-19

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In recent decades, residents and community organizations in the ethnically diverse neighborhood of Albany Park, on Chicago’s northwest side, have been resisting gentrification, emerging as one of the city’s most active neighborhoods in anti-displacement organizing and policy setting. We seek to understand how a multiplicity of actors, human and non-human, have coalesced to achieve a modicum of success in stalling, subverting, and overcoming gentrification and its attendant displacement of low-income residents. We draw on the work of urban assemblage theorists to build a temporal and spatial analysis, showing the complex assemblage of resistance actors, their experiences, and their narratives over a 20-year time span. Despite the fear of many scholars and residents, Albany Park shows that once started, gentrification is not inevitable. We introduce the concept of “inplacement” to show resistance to displacement is possible through the work of civil society organizations and other neighborhood actors.

  PublisherDOI

• Moving from “superstar” cities to “ordinary” cities to reclaim middle-class status: gentrification-induced inter-metropolitan migration

  UNC Libraries · 2025-05-24

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  A national reshuffling of the United States population is in progress, as ever more people adjust to the reality of excessively expensive urban housing markets. We unpack the out-migration of middle-class people from large, high-growth cities propelled by gentrification pressures, into one lower-cost metropolitan area in North Carolina: Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill (“the Triangle”), considering the multiple impacts of migrants on the region. We refine concepts that are central to the gentrification scholarship, namely who is displaced and the geographic range of displacement. We find that migrants experience many benefits in their new location but have fears about the future of their new city. As the Triangle is growing, it is reproducing the high prices, environmental harm, and loss of a sense of place migrants experienced in their city of origin. This suggests that newly growing cities such as the Triangle are at risk of replicating the inequalities that plague superstar cities. Theoretically, we reflect on how a case study of an “ordinary” city (Robinson [2002]. Global and world cities: A view from off the map. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 26(3), 531–554.; Robinson [2006]. Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and development. Psychology Press.) in the United States South, an underrepresented region in urban studies, can shed new light on urbanization in the United States.

  PublisherDOI

• <i>In</i> placement, not just <i>dis</i> placement: Urban assemblages and neighborhood stability in the face of gentrification

  Journal of Urban Affairs · 2024-09-16 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Moving from “superstar” cities to “ordinary” cities to reclaim middle-class status: gentrification-induced inter-metropolitan migration

  Urban Geography · 2024-05-23 · 5 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  A national reshuffling of the United States population is in progress, as ever more people adjust to the reality of excessively expensive urban housing markets. We unpack the out-migration of middle-class people from large, high-growth cities propelled by gentrification pressures, into one lower-cost metropolitan area in North Carolina: Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill ("the Triangle"), considering the multiple impacts of migrants on the region. We refine concepts that are central to the gentrification scholarship, namely who is displaced and the geographic range of displacement. We find that migrants experience many benefits in their new location but have fears about the future of their new city. As the Triangle is growing, it is reproducing the high prices, environmental harm, and loss of a sense of place migrants experienced in their city of origin. This suggests that newly growing cities such as the Triangle are at risk of replicating the inequalities that plague superstar cities. Theoretically, we reflect on how a case study of an "ordinary" city (Robinson [2002]. Global and world cities: A view from off the map. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 26(3), 531–554.; Robinson [2006]. Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and development. Psychology Press.) in the United States South, an underrepresented region in urban studies, can shed new light on urbanization in the United States.

  PublisherDOI

• Handbook on Urban Social Policies: International Perspectives on Multilevel Governance and Local Welfare

  Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews · 2023 · 10 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  PublisherDOI

• Hopelessness and depressive symptoms in children and adolescents: An integrative data analysis.

  Journal of Abnormal Psychology · 2021 · 12 citations

  • Psychology
  • Clinical psychology
  • Developmental psychology

  Although hopelessness has been linked to depression for centuries, the diagnostic criteria for depression are inconsistent with regard to the status of hopelessness. Most research on hopelessness and depression has focused on adults. The current study examined this relation in children and adolescents. Integrative data analyses with a pooled sample (N = 2466) showed that clinical levels of hopelessness multiplied the odds of having a clinical diagnosis of depression 10-fold. Conversely, not having clinical levels of hopelessness multiplied the odds of endorsing no clinical level of depressive symptoms 28-fold. Moreover, results differed by levels of depression: (a) among youths with clinical levels of depression, hopelessness was associated with six depressive symptoms; (b) among youths without clinical levels of depression, hopelessness was associated with nine depressive symptoms. We found that hopelessness helps to explain the heterogeneity of depressive presentations. Our finding supports the consideration of hopelessness in the diagnosis (if not treatment and prevention) of depression in children and adolescents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Contents

  Fordham University Press eBooks · 2020-10-29

  paratextOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 2. Savior Entrepreneurs and Demon Developers: The Role of Gourmet Restaurants and Bars in the Redevelopment of Durham

  New York University Press eBooks · 2020

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Engineering
  • Advertising
  • Visual arts
  PublisherDOI

• Gourmet Restaurants/Foods

  The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology · 2018-12-13

  other1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The study of gourmet restaurants and foods is part of the emerging field of food studies, which brings together scholars across a range of disciplines. Eating is perhaps the most basic and universal human experience, and yet what we eat, where we eat, and how we eat vary across society's fissures, including nationality, ethnicity, geography, class, and gender. Food is a social construction that is used to express identity, religious beliefs, national belonging, and ethnic pride. Within this context, gourmet food and restaurants display a class status of high distinction while also signaling consumers and producers who are curious, tolerant, and inclusive in their pursuit of authentic cuisine. The social space of the restaurant can be carefully analyzed to see how images and discourses of distinction are created. Further, “gourmet” is a geographic concept where particular places are invoked (legally and in the imaginary) to designate food as authentic and high quality.

  PublisherDOI

• Ratgeber: Ein Muss in jedem Kinderzimmer

  ergopraxis · 2018-06-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  „Paula und die Zauberschuhe“ ist ein Bilderbuch, das sich vor allem an Vor- und Grundschüler richtet. Sie lernen damit das Krankheitsbild Zerebralparese auf kindgerechte Weise kennen. Das Buch berichtet von Paula, einem fünfjährigen Mädchen mit einer körperlichen Behinderung. Paula geht aufgrund einer Spastik an einem Rollator, ist voller Tatendrang und meistens fröhlich. Sie erzählt von ihren Freundinnen, den Therapien und ihren Zauberschuhen, wie sie ihre Orthesen nennt. Die Zauberschuhe findet Paula manchmal ganz schön doof, weil sie sie zum Laufen tragen muss und weil sie sie beim Krabbeln stören.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Lawrence W. Raymond

  22 shared

• Jared Pankowski

  Carolinas Healthcare System

  22 shared

• D Chenoweth

  University of Iowa

  18 shared

• Judy Garber

  Vanderbilt University

  7 shared

• Martin Hautzinger

  University of Tübingen

  6 shared

• David A. Cole

  Vanderbilt University

  5 shared

• Bernadette Doykos

  3 shared

• Patrick Pössel

  3 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  University of Illinois at Chicago

  2008

• M.S.

  London School of Economics

  2000

• B.A.

  McGill University

  1999