community organizing

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...
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...
Interviews

Unleashing Finance Capitalism in the City: An Interview with Isaac Rose, Author of The Rentier City

Jonathan Silver & Isaac Rose - 24 June 2025
Jonathan Silver interviews author and tenant organizer Isaac Rose about his book on housing financialization in...
From the Field

Dusting off the Archives: Connecting Historical Renters’ Activism to Contemporary Housing-Justice Efforts

Céline Drieskens - 5 March 2025
Drawing parallels between the first renters’ union in Brussels and the contemporary efforts of WUUNE, a newly formed...
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 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...
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

Contemporary Housing Struggles: Crises, Activism, and Critical Research

Joshua Akers - 12 March 2021
In this series, Metropolitics focuses on the intersection of organizing, technology, politics, and policy in urban...
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. However,...
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

Community-Rooted Organizations: Enhanced Accountability and Capacity Building for Community Development

Camryn Smith & Danielle Spurlock & Aliyah Abdur-Rahman & Kay Jowers - 10 July 2020
Communities in Partnership, in Durham, North Carolina, uses a “community-rooted” approach to its work that leverages...
Essays

Homeless Theory and Research Collaboration: A Tribute to Nikita Price

Eric Goldfischer & Odilka Santiago - 9 June 2020
At a time when too many people are dying, Eric Goldfischer and Odilka Santiago remember Nikita Price of Picture the...
From the Field

Community Movements and Housing Liberalism: Reflections on the Bank of America Low‑Income Housing Competition

Avi Garelick - 15 October 2019
Avi Garelick describes how the imperative for realism in affordable housing production conflicts with the goals of a...
From the Field

The Americanization of French social movements? Community organizing and its discontents in the banlieues

Julien Talpin - 29 June 2017
In this second of two articles, sociologist Julien Talpin discusses the importation to France of American traditions...
From the Field

What’s the matter with the banlieues? Exploring the importation of the American community organizing tradition by French social movements

Julien Talpin - 22 June 2017
With the eclipse of the once-powerful Communist and Socialist Parties in France, and these parties’ traditional roots...

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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