Viktor Bensus

About me

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. 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 dissertation 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 starting my Ph.D., I completed a Master’s in City Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, and worked as an instructor and researcher at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru.

I grew up in Lima, Peru.