Insurance Research Lab

"California's Invisible Infrastructure: What Auto Insurance Tells Us About Race, Risk, and Responsibility"
by Genevieve Carpio, The Metropole: The Official Blog of the Urban History Association

The road has long been tumultuous for Latinos in places like California, as a site where the private space of the automobile and the public space of the street meet. And Californians have long understood the dangers of this interface, leading to visual commentary by artists like Carlos Almaraz, street interventions by organizations like CicLAvia which draw inspiration from Latin America to reenvision roads without cars, and political reform around access to drivers’ licensesfor undocumented drivers.[2] But beneath the road lies an invisible infrastructure that demands greater attention: insurance.

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As business and economic historians would argue, insurance, a multi-trillion-dollar global industry, shapes our lives in profound ways. Even where the intricacies of these systems may escape many of us, the anxieties they produce are a daily reality for vulnerable populations. As urban historians prepare to gather a the UHA conference in Los Angeles for the first time, I want to interject a distinctly urbanist lens to that conversation, one pointed at the automobile. And I want to show that a focus on California cities demands our eyes have a periscopic vision...

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Meet The Team

A collaborative undergraduate research team studying risk, insurance, and inequality through humanities-based research and public-facing work.