Metropolitics - Metropolitics

Debates

The Cost of Good Intentions: Planning Gridlock in San Francisco

David Prowler - 30 January 2018

The culture of protest that marked development and planning in San Francisco during the 1970s and 1980s was a...

Essays

Institutional Roadblocks to Achieving Environmental Justice Through Public Participation: The Case of CSO Control in US Cities

Rebekah Breitzer - 24 January 2018

Rather than meaningfully involving representatives of environmental-justice communities in decisions about the...

Essays

Birdwatching in the City: A Case for Multispecies Tourism

Elizabeth Cherry & August Davidson-Onsgard & Lisa Jean Moore - 16 January 2018

This essay analyzes the growth of urban avitourism—wildlife tourism focused on birds—as an activity that drives...

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...

Reviews

Making Their Own History: Squatters on Manhattan’s Lower East Side

Benjamin H. Shepard - 19 December 2017

During the 1970s, when Manhattan’s Lower East Side was full of derelict real estate, activists laid claim to...

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...

Debates

Storm Recovery: Local Efforts, Municipal Constraints, and New Ways Forward

Michael P. McCabe - 28 November 2017

Climate change-induced storm surges and rising sea levels will steadily cause more damage to homes in low-lying urban...

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...

Debates

When Does Police Violence Cause Urban Unrest?

Cathy Lisa Schneider - 14 November 2017

In the summer of 2014, police killed Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York. Both men were black and...

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...

From the Field

From “Black City” to “Slum City”: The Importance of Image in Saint-Étienne

Vincent Béal & Christelle Morel Journel & Valérie Sala Pala & translated by Oliver Waine - 20 September 2017

In December 2014, an article in the French daily newspaper Le Monde painted a highly negative portrait of the city of...

Essays

Urban Shrinkage in France: An Invisible Issue?

Rémi Dormois & Sylvie Fol & translated by Oliver Waine - 13 September 2017

Although the phenomenon of urban shrinkage affects a significant number of French towns and cities, it is an issue...

From the Field

Swept Away: Public Work and the Politics of Employment in New York City’s Parks

John Krinsky & Maud Simonet - 6 September 2017

Upwards of 4,000 unionized civil-service workers once cleaned and maintained New York City’s parks. Today about 1,800...

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...

Essays

The Happy Few and the Unhappy Many: Endangered Artists in Global Cities

Boris Grésillon & translated by John Barrett - 15 June 2017

While participating or having participated in reshaping urban spaces, artists seem to be increasingly driven away...

From the Field

Rendering a Redeveloped France

Alex Schafran & Giorgia Aiello & Theresa Enright & Yohann Le Moigne - 7 June 2017

As urban redevelopment projects remake the Greater Paris region, it is impossible to separate an avalanche of new...

From the Field

Citizen Outsider: Racism, Marginalization, and Immigration in France

Jean Beaman - 31 May 2017

As refugee crises have emerged and immigration has increased in many regions of the world, several Western countries...

Reviews

Trends Global, Impact Local

John Shapiro - 23 May 2017

Global wealth, immigration and capital flow have profoundly influenced local retail districts in world-class cities....

Debates

How Anti-Trans Bathroom Bills Hurt Girls and Women

C. Ray Borck - 16 May 2017

Do recent “bathroom bills” protect girls and women from sexual predators? Sociologist C. Ray Borck shows how—contrary...

From the Field

The Evolution of New York City’s Black Neighborhoods

John Mollenkopf - 9 May 2017

Especially in the central cities of the Northeast, neighborhoods that were once identified with black politics and...

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

The Actually Existing Markets of Shrinking Cities

Joshua Akers - 18 April 2017

In a bid to halt urban decline, Michigan’s state government sought to create incentives for the creation of urban...

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