United States

Essays

American Shrinking Cities May Not Need to Grow

Deborah E. Popper & Frank J. Popper - 25 April 2017

Successful cities are expected to continually grow, and when this doesn’t happen, city managers typically try to...

From the Field

DIY Urbanism in Shrinking Cities: Or, What Neighbors Are Left With When Markets Withdraw and Governments Contract

Kimberley Kinder - 27 March 2017

DIY culture is one of the zeitgeists of our time. Hipster home-brewing, swing-dance flash mobs, and pop-up maker...

Essays

The Arts as Fundamental—and Fragile—in Community Life

Andrew Zitcer & Julie Hawkins & Neville Vakharia - 22 February 2017

Arts funding in America mirrors the inequality found in society more broadly. Yet amid persistent poverty and other...

Interviews

“Build a Wall”: The Wrong Solution for Our Coastal Problems. An Interview with Jennifer Mattei

Jennifer H. Mattei & Lisa Jean Moore - 7 February 2017

Metropolitics editorial committee member and sociologist Lisa Jean Moore interviewed biologist Jennifer Mattei, an...

Reviews

Citadels, Cores, and Confetti: Urban Festivals in the New Political Economy of the Music Industry

Johan Jansson - 5 January 2017

How have changes in the music industry—especially regarding the way music is produced and consumed today—affected...

Reviews

Closed Quarters

William Helmreich - 13 December 2016

As we contemplate an era marked by official hostility to fair-housing laws, we would do well to heed the...

Essays

This is Not How it Ends: Post-Election Immigration Organizing in the United States

Folasade K. Famakinwa - 7 December 2016

In response to a tense post-election moment in the US, the Metropolitics editorial committee has initiated...

From the Field

A Welcoming (and Sometimes Not) America: Immigrant Integration in the New South

Anna Joo Kim - 1 November 2016

In a departure from traditional patterns of migrant settlement in the US, a cluster of ethnoburbs is emerging in...

Reviews

Restless Cities

Laura Wolf-Powers - 25 October 2016

The world of downtown real-estate development seems to have a life of its own, independent of demand for space and...

From the Field

Building a Multifaceted Campaign for Public Higher Education

Stephen Brier & Michael Fabricant - 4 October 2016

In their new book, Austerity Blues: Fighting for the Soul of Public Higher Education, Michael Fabricant and Stephen...

Debates

Climate Action Plans and the “Climate-Just” City

Cecelia Walsh-Russo - 27 September 2016

In the face of major climatic changes, more and more US cities are developing climate action plans. But while these...

Reviews

Evictions and Poverty

Hilary Botein - 28 June 2016

Matthew Desmond’s Evicted has drawn much-needed attention to the under-studied problem of unsubsidized rental...

Debates

Technocratic Values and Uneven Development in the “Smart City”

Taylor Shelton & Jennifer Clark - 10 May 2016

In the US, the idea of “smart cities” is coming to dominate federal government involvement in, and funding for, urban...

Debates

More Affordable Transit Fares

Alexis Perrotta - 26 April 2016

Low-income urban residents often struggle to afford transit fares. Seattle recently established half-fares for poor...

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...

Essays

When Cities Fail, Babies Die

Monica J. Casper - 2 February 2016

Detroit, Michigan is often identified as the worst city in the United States, with excessive poverty, racism, and...

Essays

Parallel Lives? Elena Ferrante’s Naples and My West New Rochelle

Bella Mirabella - 26 January 2016

Elena Ferrante’s acclaimed Neapolitan novels, which trace the lives of two girls born in a working class district in...

Debates

Reskilling Urban Manufacturing: Workforce Solutions from the Inside Out

Nichola Lowe - 15 December 2015

In the United States, a four-year college education has gradually come to be assumed as a prerequisite for entry...

From the Field

Federal Anti-Segregation Milestones Demand Local Mobilization

Justin Steil - 24 November 2015

In June 2015, the US Supreme Court affirmed a legal tool that stands to hold municipalities and lenders accountable...

From the Field

Civic Innovation and Creative Campaigns: How Fresh Ideas Are Compromising Local Democracy

Stephanie Savell & Gianpaolo Baiocchi & Elizabeth A. Bennett & Alissa Cordner & Peter Taylor Klein - 27 October 2015

The trend of civic innovation in contemporary activism relies much on modern tools of communication as a...

Debates

Hardening Racial Lines in Public Space

Naomi Adiv - 7 July 2015

On Friday, June 5, Black teenagers in McKinney, Texas, were violently subdued by a police officer following a...

Debates

New York’s de Blasio bargains with FIRE

Tom Waters - 16 June 2015

Frantic deal-making over an obscure but costly New York City real-estate tax incentive (421‑a) provides a window...

From the Field

Taking Research to the Streets

Jonathan R. Wynn & Richard E. Ocejo - 9 June 2015

Residents of iconic neighborhoods in New York City have grown accustomed to walking tourism in their midst—clumps of...

From the Field

Clitoral Mass: A Women-of-Color Ride Through Los Angeles

Jennifer Candipan - 2 June 2015

Every year in the summer, a group of women, women of color, and women-identified riders cycle through the city of...

Reviews

All the Gayborhoods are White

Marcus Anthony Hunter - 19 May 2015

The urban “gayborhood,” the place where gay men and women found refuge for their sexuality from bigotry, is gradually...

Essays

In Cathedrals of Craft: Workplaces for the New Elite Service, Retail, and Manual Labor Jobs

Richard E. Ocejo - 12 May 2015

As artisanal economies emerge in postindustrial cities, the symbolic language and craft culture of the industrial...

From the Field

Food Deserts and Wage Deserts: The Importance of Metaphor in Policy and Activism

Laura Wolf-Powers - 28 April 2015

So-called “food deserts,” or neighborhoods deprived of businesses that sell healthy foods, are also poor...

Debates

Occupy Mall Street?

Anthony Maniscalco - 21 April 2015

The quintessential suburb is home to the shopping mall, an indoor space of anchor departments stores, small...

Essays

“Portlandia” in Portland: Curated Life in the Utopian City

Jeff London - 7 April 2015

From the Field

The Future of Asbury Park: Gentrification and Youth in a Coastal Community

Alicia Raia-Hawrylak - 31 March 2015

Once known as a successful beach community, with a lively boardwalk and thriving rock music scene, the city of...

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