United States

Essays

Navigating Jefes Fantasmas in New York City’s Urban Platform Economy

Jackson Todd - 3 March 2023

How has the “platform economy” altered urban life, infrastructure, and labor? Jackson Todd examines New York City’s...

Reviews

The Black Middle Class, or the Harsh Reality of the American Dream

Sylvie Tissot & translated by Oliver Waine - 24 January 2023

The suburbs of the United States, once the epicenter of racial segregation, are now home to more African Americans...

Essays

Visualizing “Superdiversity” in New York City

H. Jacob Carlson - 8 November 2022

A new set of visualization and mapping tools focused on “superdiversity” shows the complexity and intersectionality...

Essays

New Tourism Geographies and the Politics of Tourist Taxation

Elizabeth Strom - 7 June 2022

The changing geography of urban tourism has led to new forms of political contestation. How hotel-tax revenues are...

From the Field

Starve the Beast: Community-Owned and Community-Controlled Composting as an Alternative to Incineration in Baltimore

Nicole Fabricant - 31 May 2022

Nicole Fabricant documents organizing efforts in Baltimore, led by youth of color, against a trash-to-energy...

From the Field

The Spectacle of Reuse: Recirculating Urban Salvage at Pittsburgh’s Construction Junction

Susan M. Ross - 29 April 2022

Susan M. Ross examines a building-materials reuse center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, arguing that it is an...

From the Field

The Promises and Realities of Data-Driven Community Development

Austin Harrison - 22 February 2022

Tennessee nonprofit Innovate Memphis has spent nearly a decade designing the Memphis Property Hub, a public data...

Reviews

Reconsidering Wasteways from Boston to Seattle

Lisa Jean Moore - 1 February 2022

Throughout the Covid‑19 pandemic, with disposable masks and endless testing, garbage proliferates. It is extremely...

Reviews

(Re)Constructing Inequality: Community Development in Public and Private

Claire Dunning - 14 December 2021

Claire Dunning reviews Jeremy R. Levine’s new book, Constructing Community, an ethnographic study of community...

Reviews

Infrastructure Financing and the Bonds of Inequality

Rachel Weber - 19 October 2021

Rachel Weber reviews historian Destin Jenkins’ new book, The Bonds of Inequality: Debt and the Making of the...

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

Between Two Crises: New York’s Artisanal Food Startup Founders

Nga Than - 28 September 2021

The Covid‑19 pandemic forced a pause to a decade of growth for New York City’s artisanal food startups. Strategies...

From the Field

Can the New Economy Survive without Coffee Shops (and Their Wi‑Fi)?

Thomas R. Chung - 21 September 2021

Thomas R. Chung argues that coffee shops play an important role in the creative and tech sectors of the...

Series

New York Dossier: The Food Industry Faces the Covid‑19 Pandemic

Sharon Zukin - 14 September 2021

Metropolitics is pleased to present the second dossier coordinated by faculty and students in the PhD program in...

Essays

Teacher Unionism and the Bargain for the Common Good

Claire Cahen - 6 July 2021

Rank-and-file teachers across the United States challenge their unions to embrace social democratic ideals, and...

Reviews

A Social Portrait of the Subprime Crisis

Camille François & translated by Oliver Waine - 14 May 2021

What have been the social and urban consequences of the subprime mortgage crisis, and what lessons can be learned...

Reviews

The Ancestors of Pandemic Pets and Vector Animals

Lisa Jean Moore - 11 May 2021

How has the place—and role—of animals in the city evolved over the last two centuries, and what bearing have these...

From the Field

Reflections on Four Years of Housing-Justice Support Work with Mapping Action Collective

Sachi Arakawa & Tim Hitchins - 13 April 2021

Mapping Action Collective, based in Portland, Oregon, leverages mapping and data to support housing-justice...

Interviews

“Every Eviction is an Act of Violence”

Tara Raghuveer & Joshua Akers - 23 March 2021

Josh Akers interviews researcher, organizer, and activist Tara Raghuveer about her work with KC Tenants in Kansas...

Interviews

Fighting for Housing Justice: An Interview with Two Youth Organizers in Curtis Bay, Baltimore

Nicole Fabricant & Carlos Sanchez & Terriq Thompson - 16 March 2021

Two Baltimore youth organizers discuss the importance of community land trusts, for housing and beyond. Series:...

From the Field

Electoral Organizing During a Pandemic: Lessons from Wisconsin

Aaron Shapiro - 12 January 2021

The global Covid‑19 pandemic has radically altered social and political practices. Aaron Shapiro reflects on the...

From the Field

Post-Election Dispatches from Luzerne County, Pennsylvania

Jamie Longazel - 22 December 2020

Jamie Longazel reflects on organizing for the 2020 general election in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. A longtime...

From the Field

Cleaning and Care Worker Cooperatives in NYC: Empowerment Through Collectivization of Labor

Nora Komposch - 8 December 2020

Worker cooperatives have been shown to reduce precariousness and economic exclusion of marginalized groups....

From the Field

The Financialization of Rent-Regulated Housing in New York City after Rent Reform

Benjamin F. Teresa - 4 December 2020

In New York City, rent-controlled housing stock has been progressively deregulated over the last three decades, to...

From the Field

Sale of the Century: Chicago’s Infrastructure Deals and the Privatization State

Philip Ashton & Marc Doussard & Rachel Weber - 24 November 2020

Since 2004, the City of Chicago has been engaged in a new wave of infrastructure privatizations, selling...

From the Field

The Contestations and Contradictions of the New York City Housing Authority’s Plan for Mixed-Income Redevelopment

Valerie E. Stahl - 10 November 2020

The New York City Housing Authority, faced with a capital shortfall of nearly $40 billion, is pursuing a series of...

Interviews

Political Organizing Beyond the Election: An Interview with Rosa Saavedra in North Carolina

Rosa Saavedra & Edwin Mayorga - 2 November 2020

Edwin Mayorga interviews organizer Rosa Saavedra from North Carolina. They discuss the political landscape and...

Interviews

Electoral Organizing in North Carolina: An Interview with Tomás Garduño

Tomás Garduño & Kate Selden - 27 October 2020

Kate Selden interviews Tomás Garduño, a social-justice organizer, about his work in Lenoir County, North Carolina,...

Essays

The House is Ours: How Moms 4 Housing Challenged the Private-Property Paradigm

Lauren Everett - 6 October 2020

In the midst of a global housing affordability crisis that has been heightened by the Covid‑19 pandemic, it is time...

Essays

Shelters for Profit, Not People: The Rise of Tax-Credit Investment in US Cities

Renee Tapp - 22 September 2020

Tax-credit investment in US cities provides tax havens for investors, and squanders taxpayer resources on...

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