From the Field

From the Field

Marielle Franco and Brazilian Democracy at a Crossroads

Natália Alves & Isabella Gonçalves Miranda & Felipe Magalhães - 26 June 2018

Marielle Franco’s life and death raised questions about the limits of Brazil’s New Republic. It revealed the rising...

From the Field

Paving the Silk Road: Rethinking Ethnic Solidarity in Los Angeles’ Korean Garment District

Angie Y. Chung & Sookhee Oh - 19 June 2018

In this piece on Koreans in Los Angeles’ garment industry, sociologists Angie Chung and Sookhee Oh discuss the...

From the Field

Land Regularization on the Fringes of Mexico City: A Recipe for Reducing Inequalities?

Jean-François Valette & translated by Oliver Waine - 8 June 2018

Mexico City’s working-class neighbourhoods are the focus of numerous land-regularization operations. Jean-François...

From the Field

Land Insecurity in Khartoum: When Land Titles Fail to Protect Against Public Predation

Alice Franck & translated by Oliver Waine - 6 June 2018

The unstable economic and political context in Sudan has encouraged people to invest massively in land in urban...

From the Field

You Can’t Kill Marielle

Meg Stalcup & Erika Robb Larkins - 29 May 2018

Marielle Franco was part of a new generation of progressive activists in Brazilian politics. She was assassinated...

From the Field

Taste of Home: A Sociocultural Exploration of Food Habits and Health Among Bangladeshi Immigrants in New York City

Fatema Kamal - 22 May 2018

Resettlement in an entirely different country may have drastic consequences for an individual’s health. This is...

From the Field

Immigrant Men and Voluntary Work in a Swiss City

Agnès Aubry - 15 May 2018

Across Europe, refugees and immigrants find themselves in uncertain civil and legal territory; precariousness infuses...

From the Field

Shanghai’s West Bund Cultural Corridor Exemplifies the Opportunities and Risks of State-Driven Cultural Development

Siqi Tu - 8 May 2018

The West Bund Cultural Corridor in Shanghai is the latest entrant in a global competition to attract investment by...

From the Field

Planning for the Unimaginable: Puerto Rico and Strategies for Climate-Change Adaptation

Cecelia Walsh-Russo - 1 May 2018

The damage from the two hurricanes that struck Puerto Rico was multiplied by US austerity plans that deprived the...

From the Field

The Territorial and Environmental Impacts of Climate Change in Germany

Dennis Becker & Stefan Greiving & Viola Schulze Dieckhoff & Thorsten Wiechmann - 25 April 2018

In Germany, the territorial and environmental impacts of climate change intersect in key ways with the nation’s...

From the Field

Overcoming Climate Impacts Through Adaptive Capacity Building: Two Extreme Cases from Germany

Viola Schulze Dieckhoff & Thorsten Wiechmann - 25 April 2018

Climate change and demographic change interact. Impacts of climate change do not solely result from climate...

From the Field

Climate and Demographic Change: The Need for an Integrative Approach to Spatial Planning in Germany

Dennis Becker & Stefan Greiving - 25 April 2018

Climate change and demographic change are two megatrends that are often discussed without regard for their complex...

From the Field

Urban Desires and Lust for Land

Éric Denis (†) & translated by Oliver Waine - 20 April 2018

In the Global South, vast swathes of periurban and agricultural land are being sold off and converted into financial...

From the Field

Insecure Lives Under Extreme Climate Conditions: Insights from a Fishing Hamlet in Tamil Nadu, India

Devendraraj Madhanagopal - 17 April 2018

In recent years, climate change–induced weather events have exacerbated poverty and insecurity in small fishing...

From the Field

Floods, Animals and Shared Urban Futures?

Leonie Tuitjer - 10 April 2018

When the city of Bangkok flooded following tropical storms in 2011, an altered urban waterscape erased the neat...

From the Field

Repositioning the state’s role through water politics in Mexico City’s informal settlements

Guillem Ramírez Chico - 27 March 2018

Throughout the Mexico City metropolitan area, the struggle for water access often defines the relationship (or lack...

From the Field

The Cost of Affordability: Inclusionary Zoning and Displacement in East New York

James Shelton - 20 March 2018

What are the impacts of New York City’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program upon low-income communities of color?...

From the Field

The Everyday Activism of Chicago’s Public High-School Football Coaches

Lawrence Johnson - 13 March 2018

For several generations, high-school football programs have been an important part of the social fabric in...

From the Field

“People of Color Are Not Props”: Black Branding and Community Resistance in Gentrifying Brooklyn

Maura McGee - 6 February 2018

When a new white-owned upscale bar-restaurant in the gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights advertised...

From the Field

Excluding Fast and Slow: Charlottesville’s Long Battle over Public Space

Frank Muraca - 9 January 2018

The “Unite the Right” white-supremacist rally in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, erupted into violence, killing...

From the Field

Demystifying Urban Agriculture in Detroit

Flaminia Paddeu - 14 December 2017

Urban agriculture projects in North American shrinking cities have been the subject of much media attention in recent...

From the Field

Mitigating urban decline through the compact city? Reflections on 15 years of urban recentralization policies in Japan

Sophie Buhnik - 7 December 2017

To cope with a rapidly spreading and now pervasive phenomenon of urban decline, Japanese authorities have actively...

From the Field

Dwelling—Living—Waiting: Transformations of a Refugee Reception Camp in Germany

Nina Riewe - 21 November 2017

In wealthy German cities, which have received tens of thousands of refugees from the Middle East and Northern Africa...

From the Field

Snowbirds’ Gift Economy in the Arizona Desert

David Frati - 7 November 2017

Each year, 200,000 retired people spend the winter in and around the small town of Quartzsite, Arizona, in the...

From the Field

Who Stays and Who Leaves? Residential Flows in French Shrinking Cities

Mathilde Rudolph - 1 November 2017

In focusing on residential flows, Mathilde Rudolph seeks to shed light on the processes of urban decline at play in...

From the Field

No Lawful Status: Immigrant Youth in a State of Exclusion

Alexis Silver - 24 October 2017

When the Trump administration rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, nearly 800,000...

From the Field

Shrinking to Survive? Demolition and Energy Transition in Small-Town France

Yoan Miot & Max Rousseau & translated by Oliver Waine - 18 October 2017

Faced with a process of advanced decline, public and private actors in the town of Vitry-le-François, in eastern...

From the Field

Projecting Supply and Demand for Middle-Skill Occupations in US States and Metro Areas

James Orr & Ofronama Biu - 10 October 2017

Analysts have long noted difficulties in quantifying and projecting skill mismatches in local labor markets....

From the Field

Shrinking Cities in France: The Cumulative Effects of Decline

Nicolas Cauchi-Duval & Frédérique Cornuau & Mathilde Rudolph & translated by Oliver Waine - 4 October 2017

In France, different shrinking cities have followed different trajectories. They nevertheless all have certain...

From the Field

Shrinking Networks, Growing Solidarities? How to Design a New Social and Territorial Contract

Daniel Florentin - 27 September 2017

Utilities operators in a number of European cities, faced with significant reductions in consumption levels across...

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