Berlin

Essays

Multiplied Displacement Under Racial Capitalism: The “Migrant Crisis” in Berlin and New York City

René Kreichauf - 31 January 2025
Berlin and New York City, both self-proclaimed “migrant-friendly cities,” have long been destinations for...
From the Field

Resisting the Neoliberal City? The Popular Initiative in Berlin

Thomas Chevallier - 17 February 2023
Western representative democracy is in crisis. In response, direct democracy is emerging as a possible path to...
Reviews

Underground Berlin: Where Infrastructure Meets Politics

Clarence Hatton-Proulx & translated by Oliver Waine - 2 December 2022
Water, electricity, gas: in Remaking Berlin, Timothy Moss presents a history of Berlin’s infrastructure networks from...
Interviews

What Has Happened in Berlin Since 1989?

Thibaut de Ruyter & Olivier Gaudin & translated by Oliver Waine - 12 June 2020
Since the fall of the Wall in November 1989, Berlin has metamorphosed into one of the world’s most popular urban...
Reviews

Photographing the Slums of 1900s Berlin

Danièle Voldman & translated by Oliver Waine - 14 September 2018
At the turn of the 20th century, the dramatically poor conditions of urban working-class housing was a cause of major...
Essays

The Political Aesthetics of Drag

Shaka McGlotten - 13 October 2015
Drag, or the diverse art form and culture of performance that typically plays with gender and sex, is an integral...
From the Field

Ambivalences of Gender Planning

Sandra Huning - 23 January 2013
How can a gender approach be integrated into urban planning? Sandra Huning here considers this question and presents...

Series

Horizons in the Housing Struggle
Black Power and Black Self-Determination in a New Time and New Spaces
Urban Wastes, Present and Future
New York Dossier: The Food Industry Faces the Covid‑19 Pandemic
Cities in the Age of Financialization
Contemporary Housing Struggles: Crises, Activism, and Critical Research
New York Tech Dossier: The Dark Side of New York’s Tech Economy
Progressive Mayors and Urban Social Movements
Land Rights in the Urban Global South

Featured

From the Field

Covid-19 Transformed New York’s Destination Food Markets

Ivana Mellers - 5 October 2021
Ivana Mellers analyzes how New York’s destination markets—key spaces of economic and social interactions—coped during...
From the Field

Moving Inside City Limits: The Urban Mobility of Undocumented Youth

Stephen P. Ruszczyk - 4 June 2019
The urban context and public transportation shape how undocumented youths move within cities. In a comparison of New...
Reviews

Filming Ethnic Diversity in New York

Stéphane Tonnelat & translated by Christina Mitrakos - 21 October 2016
Frederick Wiseman’s fortieth documentary film, In Jackson Heights (2015), returns to an urban theme explored in...
From the Field

Looking Inward, Across the Border

Harel Shapira - 19 April 2016
In the constellation of anti-immigrant politics in the United States, groups like the Minutemen, civilians who patrol...
Essays

The Political Aesthetics of Drag

Shaka McGlotten - 13 October 2015
Drag, or the diverse art form and culture of performance that typically plays with gender and sex, is an integral...
Debates

Disarm the Police

Gregory Smithsimon - 29 September 2015
In the current political debates about discriminatory policing, there has been a lack of serious discussion of...

Other resources online

“Our hallway’s big enough to play football in!” The council housing...

The Guardian
Boasting two-sink kitchens, Tower Court in north London is tailored for the Haredi Jewish community – but its...

Saudi Arabia: How is Mobility Being Transformed in the Oil Kingdom?

Mobile Lives Forum
04 April 2025, by Aniss Mouad Mezoued The launch of the Riyadh metro in late November 2024 once again highlighted...

Transport for Suburbia: Beyond the Automobile Age (Paul Mees)

Mobile Lives Forum
27 March 2025, by Javier Caletrío Can suburbia avoid car dependence? Can low-density areas enjoy first-rate public...

Geopolitics and Electric Vehicles: The Rise of Climate Protectionism

Mobile Lives Forum
17 February 2025, by Xabier Gangoiti and Graham Parkhurst The electric vehicle (EV) revolution is not just a...

One Way to Fight Rising Food Prices: Public Grocery Stores

The New Republic
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has proposed opening government-owned grocery stores as a solution to...

The Quiet Power of Car-Free Neighborhoods

CityLab
Restricting or banning vehicles in congested city centers pays off with cleaner air and safer streets. We need to...
Centre national de recherche scientifique (CNRS)
Journal supported by the Institut des Sciences Humaines et Sociales (Institute of Human and Social Sciences) of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)

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