Research professor Alejandro Portes, along with Ariel C. Armony, co-wrote the book "Emerging Global Cities: Origin, Structure, and Significance" published by Columbia University Press. In this book, Portes and Armony demonstrate how the rapid and unexpected rise of three cities – Dubai, Miami, and Singapore - recasts global urban studies. They identify the constellation of factors that allow certain urban places to become “emerging global cities”—centers of commerce, finance, art, and culture for entire regions. The book traces the transformations of Dubai, Miami, and Singapore, identifying key features common to these emerging global cities. Portes and Armony also highlight the importance of climate change to the prospects of emerging global cities, showing how the same economic system that propelled their rise now imperils their future.
Portes teaches across the University of Miami at both the School of Law and the College of Arts and Sciences. Before joining the University of Miami, he was the Howard Harrison and Gabrielle S. Beck Professor of Sociology (emeritus) and the founding director of the Center for Migration and Development at Princeton University. Portes is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the former president of the American Sociological Association. His books include City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami (University of California Press, 1993) and Immigrant America: A Portrait (University of California Press, 2014).
In 2019 Portes was honored with the Princess of Asturias award, which is the highest form of recognition bestowed by the Spanish Crown and one of the most important prizes conferred in the European Union.
