Metropolitics - Metropolitics

Interviews

What Has Happened in Berlin Since 1989?

Thibaut de Ruyter & Olivier Gaudin & translated by Oliver Waine - 12 June 2020

Since the fall of the Wall in November 1989, Berlin has metamorphosed into one of the world’s most popular urban...

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...

Debates

Covid-19, War, and Working-Class Neighborhoods

Pierre Gilbert & translated by Oliver Waine - 5 June 2020

The residents of France’s working-class neighborhoods, accused of exacerbating the coronavirus pandemic through their...

Reviews

Europe and the Question of Social Class

Gilles Laferté & translated by Oliver Waine - 29 May 2020

A recent French work addresses the issue of social class in Europe, considering the different profiles and...

Reviews

Confronting Police Violence and an Unjust Justice System

Michele Graham - 19 May 2020

We publish Michele Graham’s review of the 2018 book The War on Neighborhoods: Policing, Prison, and Punishment in a...

Essays

Sentinel Territories: A New Concept for Looking at Environmental Change

David Blanchon & Frédéric Keck & François-Michel Le Tourneau & Stéphane Tonnelat & Adriana Zuniga-Teran - 8 May 2020

In this essay, the authors develop the concept of “sentinel territories,” or environments where humans can perceive...

From the Field

#IStayCamp. Health Conditions, Food Deprivation and Solidarity Problems in the First Days of Lockdown in the Roma Villages of Rome

Carlo Stasolla & Tommaso Vitale - 28 April 2020

Activist research in formal settlements of emergency housing in Rome during the Covid‑19 lockdown reveals how such...

From the Field

How the Youth of the Banlieues See the Gilets Jaunes

Ahmed & Baptiste & Hachimia & Jeremy & Karima & Lisa-Marie & Louiza & Thibaut & translated by Oliver Waine - 24 April 2020

Do the “Yellow Vests” and the youth of France’s banlieues share a common vision of the inequalities and...

Essays

Educating Tenants: A Historic Remit of Social Housing

Danièle Voldman & translated by Oliver Waine - 17 April 2020

In France, the professions of social worker and concierge both emerged in the early 20th century, and both responded...

Essays

When Measurement Matters: Displacement, Gentrification, Residential Mobility

H. Jacob Carlson - 14 April 2020

Scholarly studies of displacement resulting from gentrification are inconsistent in what they measure, and omit...

From the Field

When Memory is Confined: Politics of Commemoration on Avenida 26, Bogotá

Violante Torre - 7 April 2020

After more than five decades of conflict, the Colombian capital, Bogotá, is undergoing processes not just of...

Essays

The New Suburban Secession: A Postfascist Turn in Atlanta’s Cityhood Movement

Coleman Allums & Scott Markley - 10 March 2020

In this essay, Coleman Allums and Scott Markley analyze a suburban secessionist movement in Atlanta, Georgia. They...

From the Field

From Transit to Settlement. A Mexican Border Town’s Transition from a Transit Space to a Waiting Territory

Isabel Gil-Everaert - 3 March 2020

Tanapan, a border town in southern Mexico has long been a point of passage for Central American migrants bound for...

From the Field

Unlikely Inter-Class Cooperation in Urbanizing Rural Colombia

Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría - 25 February 2020

Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría examines a case of rural gentrification outside of Bogotá, Colombia, and shows how...

Reviews

Aubervilliers: Portrait of a Working-Class Suburb

Anaïs Albert & translated by Oliver Waine - 21 February 2020

The republication of an early-20th‑century realist novel set in the northern Paris suburb of Aubervilliers brings the...

From the Field

A Construction Boom in an Urban Floodplain: Long Island City, Queens, NYC

Christopher Ryan - 11 February 2020

New York City has encouraged development in Long Island City, Queens, even as the neighborhood has not recovered from...

From the Field

Displacement, Demobilization, and Democracy: Current Eviction and Historic Dispossession in Richmond, Virginia

Kathryn Howell & Benjamin F. Teresa - 4 February 2020

High eviction rates in Black Richmond neighborhoods must be understood in the context of a long history of political...

Essays

New York Tech Dossier: Insecure Frontier Jobs? Staying Relevant in New York’s Tech Ecosystem

Max Papadantonakis - 21 January 2020

“Frontier” jobs in digital technologies promise lucrative career paths, but Max Papadantonakis’s research suggests...

Essays

New York Tech Dossier: The Declining Significance of Proximity in Venture Capital Investments

Joanna Dressel - 14 January 2020

Venture capital investment in New York City has increased over the last decade, contributing to the development of...

Essays

New York Tech Dossier: “Innovation Districts” in New York: Contentious Geographies of Growth

Sharon Zukin - 7 January 2020

Sharon Zukin analyzes how city government in New York has supported concentrations of tech firms—“innovation...

From the Field

Nuits Debout Across Greater Paris: The Spread of a Political Innovation

Laurent Beauguitte & Nicolas Lambert & translated by Oliver Waine - 20 December 2019

As France experiences strikes and demonstrations in protest against pension reforms, we look back to the spring of...

Reviews

Understanding School Closures in Chicago: A Review of Eve Ewing’s Ghosts in the Schoolyard

Ryan M. Good - 17 December 2019

Eve Ewing’s Ghosts in the Schoolyard portrays recent school reform efforts in Chicago through the eyes of those...

Essays

Poverty as a Social Stigma

Axelle Brodiez-Dolino & translated by Oliver Waine - 13 December 2019

The distinction between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor is deeply entrenched, and representations of poverty...

Reviews

Black Homeownership Under Racial Capitalism: A Review of Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s Race for Profit

Hilary Botein - 10 December 2019

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s Race for Profit examines the urban homeownership programs of the 1960s and 1970s, and shows...

Debates

Diverting Eyes and Bodies: The Management of Homeless Visibility in New York City

Eric Goldfischer - 19 November 2019

Eric Goldfischer argues that homeless diversion programs in New York City simultaneously divert the bodies of...

From the Field

Culture and the Nighttime Economy: A Conversation with London’s Night Czar and Culture-at-Risk Officer

Amin Ghaziani - 12 November 2019

Amin Ghaziani describes the high closure rate of LGBTQ nighttime venues in London, and the city’s recognition of...

From the Field

Rio de Janeiro: Storms, Militia, and Urban Development

Leandro Benmergui & Rafael Soares Gonçalves & translated by Oliver Waine - 8 November 2019

The dramatic consequences of storms at the beginning of 2019 in a favela in Rio de Janeiro reveal the ongoing...

Reviews

The Just Transition, Economic Democracy, and the Green New Deal

Evan Casper-Futterman & Jason Spicer - 5 November 2019

Can participatory and economic democracy in the US support a Green New Deal? Evan Casper‑Futterman and Jason Spicer...

From the Field

Open-Air Auto Shops: Subsistence Jobs in Working-Class Neighborhoods

Collectif Rosa Bonheur & translated by Oliver Waine - 25 October 2019

The informal activities of street mechanics observed by Collectif Rosa Bonheur in northern France attest to a much...

Debates

What Does a Just Housing Plan Look Like? NYC and National Housing Movements Show the Way

Oksana Mironova & Sylvia Morse - 22 October 2019

How could we develop a housing plan that is not rooted in capitalism? Oksana Mironova and Sylvia Morse describe how...

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