United States

From the Field

An Unexpected Victory in the Fight to Save Philadelphia Chinatown

Andrew Lee - 14 October 2025

Grassroots efforts to counter gentrification-inducing megaprojects often fail as elected officials negotiate various...

From the Field

The Emergence of Transnational Queer Organizing Across a Hardening US–Canada Border

Elizabeth Hessek - 30 September 2025

LGTBQ+ refugees in the United States not only face the violence of the nation’s immigration policy but are also...

Debates

Defunding Social Services

Brenden Beck - 15 July 2025

Cities around the United States are bracing for federal funding cuts to social services. Yet, as Brenden Beck...

From the Field

The Fight for Community Ownership in Los Angeles Chinatown via the LA Chinatown CLT

Amy Zhou - 8 July 2025

Community land trusts are one strategy to stem displacement due to real-estate speculation in Chinatowns across North...

From the Field

A Crisis of Habitation in LA’s Last Remaining Wetland

Deike Peters & Sam Lutzker - 18 March 2025

As housing crises become increasingly entangled with environmental crises, the question of just outcomes requires...

Debates

Can the Market Solve Los Angeles’ Housing and Homelessness Crisis?

Katherine Smock - 27 February 2025

Policymakers in Los Angeles hope that market-based solutions will solve the city’s housing crisis. Data from the...

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...

Essays

From Universal Basic Income to Guaranteed Basic Income: An Experiment for Cities on the Brink

Marc Doussard - 17 December 2024

Surprisingly, US cities have led the charge in basic-income experiments, despite the country’s aversion to social...

Debates

The Banality of Innovation: Mythic Discourse and the Long Road to Shore Power in New York City

Iain McDavid - 3 December 2024

If the New York City Economic Development Corporation is committed to the city’s “green transformation, ” then why is...

Essays

The Impact of Tort Reform Liability Shields During the Covid‑19 Pandemic: Hyper-Preemption in the States

Davia C. Downey & William M. Myers - 1 October 2024

The Covid‑19 pandemic exposed how federal and state preemption hamstrings local policymaking. Using the case of tort...

Interviews

“There Is No Excused Absence in Prison”

Tanisha Cannon & Dylan O’Donoghue - 19 July 2024

More than 150 years after the passage of the 13th Amendment, the fight to abolish forced labor in the United States...

Essays

On a Road to Nowhere? Military Urbanism and the Architecture of Segregation

Tim Cunningham - 3 May 2024

Comparing the experiences of Belfast, Northern Ireland, with the United States, Tim Cunningham shows how physical...

Essays

Breaking Down the NYPD: How Reconsidering Political District Maps Could Open New Doors to Police Accountability

Toby Irving - 16 February 2024

Efforts to stem the power of the NYPD and the violence such power facilitates require accountability to the people of...

From the Field

The Black Radical Imagination in a Rural Forgotten Space

Brad Stephens & Chris Stephenson & Max O. Stephenson Jr. - 16 January 2024

How does the Black Radical imagination manifest in “forgotten places” amid shifting populations? Brad Stephens, Chris...

Debates

Writing the Intellectual History of Bioregionalism

Antoine Dubiau & translated by Oliver Waine - 22 December 2023

As bioregionalist ideas spread in France, their history remains partly unwritten. This environmental movement, which...

From the Field

We Are From Nairobi (#panthershit): Black Power Spatial Imaginaries in Silicon Valley

Kimberley S. Johnson - 17 October 2023

East Palo Alto’s Black, Latiné and Pacific Islander residents deploy #panthershit—a Black Power spatial imaginary as...

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 important...

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 American...

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...

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