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

Queens, New York: A Global Microcosm

Susie J. Tanenbaum — 2021-05-04T05:00:00Z

Susie J. Tanenbaum reviews Immigrant Crossroads: Globalization, Incorporation, and Placemaking in Queens, New York, highlighting how the new edited volume by Tarry Hum, Ron Hayduk, François Pierre-Louis, Jr., and Michael Alan Krasner uses the case of Queens, New York, to bring together interdisciplinary perspectives on contemporary immigration issues in a hyper-diverse urban setting and expands the field of immigration studies in promising ways.
On January 28, 2017, an executive order from

- Reviews / Queens, New York, migration, immigration, migrants, immigrant incorporation, diversity, hyper-diversity, globalization, placemaking, Donald Trump

Citadels, Cores, and Confetti: Urban Festivals in the New Political Economy of the Music Industry

Johan Jansson — 2017-01-05T20:07:54Z

How have changes in the music industry—especially regarding the way music is produced and consumed today—affected urban spaces and the production of the city more generally? In his review of Jonathan Wynn's Music/City, Johan Jansson examines the wider urban context surrounding music and the city, and in particular the impact on local communities of the ever-growing number of music festivals taking place in and around urban areas.
In recent years, the music industry has undergone thorough

- Reviews / public space, placemaking, culture, United States, Austin, arts, music, festivals, cultural policy, production of the city, Nashville, Newport (Rhode Island), festivalization

A Right to the Suburb? New Urbanism, Public Space, and the Law

Anthony Maniscalco — 2014-12-08T05:50:00Z

The American suburb is changing. It is racially and economically diverse. Its sterile spaces are being redesigned for more community life. And yet, even in the community spaces in redesigned suburbs, rights to free speech and protest are legally denied, as the spaces are still private. As our suburbs become more like cities, can we create genuine public spaces for politics?
No longer homogeneous bedroom communities or exclusively white, middle-class commuter enclaves, America's suburbs are

- Essays / public space, placemaking, United States, social justice, suburbs, New Urbanism, edge cities, protest

“Placemaking”: a new approach to designing and managing urban public spaces

Michèle Jolé & Stéphane Tonnelat — 2010-11-23T16:22:04Z

Based in New York City, PPS or "Project for Public Spaces" is an innovating urban planning and design company at the forefront of the contemporary trend of advocacy for better public spaces around the world. Though they regard Paris as an inspiring example, they also suggest ways to enhance the role of its public spaces towards more lively and more economically sustainable neighborhoods.
---- Dossier : Espaces publics urbains et concertation Kathy Madden is senior vice-president of Project

- Interviews / public space, placemaking, parks, video