Thomas Vicino

Thomas J. Vicino is an American academic and university administrator in the fields of political science and urban studies. Since March 2024, he has served as the eighth dean of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University.

Early life and education He earned a BSC degree in Communication Studies and Political Science at the University of Miami, where he was awarded the Frazier D. White Award for Excellence in Communication Studies. He later earned MPP and PhD degrees in public policy from the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where he worked as a Research Assistant at the Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education.

Career

Administrative career Vicino began his academic career in 2006 at the University of Texas at Arlington as an assistant professor in the School of Urban and Public Affairs, focusing on economic development and metropolitan governance. He later joined Wheaton College in Massachusetts as an assistant professor of political science in 2008.

Scholarly career Vicino’s scholarship centers on the political economy of metropolitan development, with a particular focus on how cities and suburbs evolve under shifting demographic, economic, and governance pressures.

His early empirical work on suburban Baltimore drew national attention for documenting the stagnation and socioeconomic decline occurring in many older suburbs, areas once considered stable middle-class communities but increasingly marked by aging housing stock, rising poverty, and demographic transformation. His analysis of Baltimore County’s suburbs highlighted patterns of population loss, racial change, infrastructure deterioration, and uneven school performance, underscoring the need for sustained public and private reinvestment in older suburban communities.

Across his research, Vicino introduced the concept of “new metropolitan realities,” rejecting the traditional model of a central city surrounded by a uniform suburban ring.

His work emphasized the heterogeneity of suburban places, the emergence of both prosperity and distress in the suburbs, and the consequences of decentralized urban growth for inequality, housing markets, and regional planning.

His analyses have been cited in reporting on issues of downtown revitalization, deindustrialization, suburban sprawl, and international migration.

As a Fulbright U.S. Scholar in Brazil, he conducted research on urban governance, large-scale redevelopment, and the sociopolitical complexities of rapid urban transformation.

His research on Brazil examined the country’s economic volatility, urban development challenges surrounding events like the World Cup and the Olympics, and longer-term political and demographic trends shaping the country’s trajectory.

Selected publications

Books

Hanlon, Bernadette; Vicino, Thomas J. (2026). Global Migration: The Basics (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Articles