David Wilson has been appointed as a lifetime American Association of Geographers Fellow for his meaningful contributions to the discipline of geography. Professor Wilson, with appointments in geography, urban planning, and the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory at Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has been an innovative theorist of global north cities and their rust belt urban environments for more than thirty years. His groundbreaking work in examining the power and prowess of growth machines and urban governances, the relations of gentrification and urban policy to the making of hyperghettos and slum spaces, and the dynamics of political resistance to neoliberal regimes of power has put him on the forefront of engaged, critical urban scholarship globally.