Interview with Lance Freeman
Client: University of Pennsylvania's Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR)
An interview with one of the world’s leading scholars of urban housing and gentrification
My Role
I interviewed Lance Freeman, one of the world’s leading scholars of urban housing and gentrification, for Penn IUR’s e-newsletter and website. I researched Dr. Freeman’s work and career, wrote questions, and conducted the interview over the phone. I edited a transcribed version of the interview for length and clarity and allowed him to review the penultimate draft.
Challenge
The primary challenge lay in addressing a diverse audience with varying levels of familiarity with the context of Dr. Freeman's work. Readers would include undergraduate and graduate students, faculty in his field and in other fields, practitioners of various urban professions (such as housing policy and city planning), and the general public. The goal was to create a piece that resonated with academics at all levels as well as practitioners and those with a general interest in urban affairs.
Solution
Balancing the need for intellectual depth with accessibility required strategic crafting of the interview. In order to engage readers with very different levels of familiarity with his work, I asked about Dr. Freeman’s personal introduction to academic research as well as about discipline-specific developments in the field of urban housing and gentrification.
Most importantly, I kept the interview conversational. I held the interview over the phone rather than by email (even knowing that it would be transcribed). Not only did this elicit conversational responses from Dr. Freeman, but it gave me the opportunity to ask questions when the interview became especially technical; I could then incorporate his responses into the edited draft (often in clauses set off by commas or parentheses to keep the clarification from feeling patronizing to readers who did not need it).
While editing the transcript, I sought to keep the language as straightforward as possible but no more, while also retaining Dr. Freeman’s voice. Ultimately, the interview provided valuable insights for a wide spectrum of readers while reflecting the depth of Dr. Freeman's expertise.