Eric Klinenberg

Eric Klinenberg was born in Chicago in 1970 and grew up in the city. He studied at Brown University and earned his doctorate in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a professor of sociology at New York University and directs its Institute for Public Knowledge.

His first book, Heat Wave (2002), studied the 1995 Chicago heat wave and showed that its more than 700 deaths fell hardest on poor, isolated old people in neighborhoods with few shops and empty streets. Going Solo (2012) examined the rise of living alone. Palaces for the People (2018) argued that libraries, parks and other shared spaces hold communities together.

Modern Romance (2015), written with the comedian Aziz Ansari, used focus groups, interviews and data from dating sites to show how smartphones and online dating have changed courtship. His later book 2020 (2024) follows seven New Yorkers through the first year of the pandemic.