Metropolitics

The Cities We're Losing—The Cities We Need

Ahmed Allahwala — 2026-03-17T06:00:00Z

Although there is no shortage of work on gentrification, it rarely takes as its object of inquiry those “ordinary” places—diners, corner stores—that are lost. Yet, in The Cities We Need, Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani shows the importance of understanding how their loss impacts not only how we understand neighborhoods, but how we understand ourselves.
The Cities We Need explores what we lose when the spaces that anchor life in urban communities disappear. In this beautiful book, visual artist and

- Reviews / gentrification, nostalgia, place, placemaking, displacement, Brooklyn, New York, Oakland, everyday spaces

The Struggle to Preserve Hanlan's Point Beach as Queer Social Infrastructure

Ahmed Allahwala — 2024-05-28T05:00:00Z

The march of neoliberal urbanism poses grave threats to nature and the people that use it. In this article, Ahmed Allahwala considers how activism against the City of Toronto's plans for a music venue on Hanlan's Point Beach, an important site for 2SLGBTQ+ life and history as well as a sensitive coastal area, might inform preservation struggles against such threats, in and beyond Toronto.
Nestled along a wooded stretch of environmentally sensitive freshwater dunes, Hanlan's Point is a sandy

- From the Field / beach, LGBTQ+, queer, social infrastructure, Canada, Toronto