Good evening, everyone. It’s great to see so many people here on a beautiful Friday afternoon in Providence, Rhode Island. My name is Richard Locke. I’m a professor of Political Science and international public affairs, and I currently serve as provost. And it’s a great pleasure for me to welcome you to Brown– some of you back to Brown– and all of you to tonight’s Meiklejohn lecture, which is sponsored by the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy. Now, before I invite the Taubman Center director, professor Susan Moffitt, to the stage to introduce our distinguished speakers, I want to just offer a few brief remarks about the significance…

Let’s go ahead and get started. And welcome to today’s conversation on Scott Allard’s new book, Places in Need– The Changing Geography of Poverty. I’m Susan Moffit. I’m the director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy. And this year the Taubman Center is focusing on three themes– the cost of living, the value of democracy, and the price of security. And Scott’s work speaks very nicely to these themes with his close look at the rise of suburban poverty over the last 25 years, and the challenges that suburban communities are having as they try to address the rising poverty. He writes, “There are more poor people…