Clark, William

Issues of mobility and migration have not only defined William A. V. Clark's research but also initiated his entry into the discipline of geography. After earning his BA and MA degrees from the University of New Zealand in 1960 and 1961, he received a Fulbright fellowship and traveled to the United States, where he received his PhD in geography from the University of Illinois in 1964. Following graduation, he returned to New Zealand, where he lectured in the geography department at the University of Canterbury until 1966. He came back to the United States, first to the geography department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1966, where he was appointed adjunct associate professor of urban planning in 1968, and then to the geography department at University of California, Los Angeles.

Los Angeles became his home and continues to provide a vantage point for observing the influence of demographic change associated with internal and international population migration flows in urban neighborhoods. Indeed, living in Los Angeles, a place in constant demographic flux, convinced Clark that residential segregation in the urban United States was not simply the outcome of white racism, although it certainly played a role in determining the patterns of black segregation. Rather, it was a much more complex story, including the influence of sometimes rapid demographic change, housing costs and incomes, residential preferences, and ties to the neighborhood. Clark's immense body of work continues to be highly influential and led to his election to the National Academy of Sciences in 2005, which is but one of numerous recognitions of the importance of his research.

Some additional highlights include the Decade of Behaviour Research Award and an Alumni Achievement Award from the College of Liberal Arts and Science at the University of Illinois. He is also an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society of New Zealand. Clark also holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Utrecht and a DSc from the University of Auckland.

While the important contribution of Clark's considerable body of work has been widely [Page 418]acknowledged, it would be incorrect to assert that it has been received unquestioningly. Clark's work has been challenged and critiqued to varying degrees throughout his career. Specifically, his expert testimony on behalf of school districts in a series of cases on the role school districts played in residential segregation was very polarizing and placed him firmly in the middle of a contentious debate with regard to race relations and the legacy of racial segregation in the United States. Despite the criticism, Clark continued to argue that school districts could not be held responsible for neighborhood-level demographic change that resulted in changes to the racial composition of the school. This argument emerged from rigorous empirical analysis that highlighted the transformative power of demographic transitions on the residential mosaic and a belief that such evidence-based analysis is the foundation on which policy should rest.

In addition to his work examining the effects of demographic change on patterns of residential segregation and separation, Clark has also conducted a comprehensive macrolevel analysis of immigration in California and the United States. In this research, Clark finds the middle ground between two seemingly irreconcilable positions, that is, the view that immigration is a valuable resource and that immigration needs to be drastically curtailed because of the social and economic costs associated with it. In doing so, Clark highlights the geographically uneven and multiscalar nature of immigration, in which both costs and benefits coexist, albeit in different locations and at different scales.

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