Metropolitics

Fixing the Accessibility Gap in Municipal Procurement

Emily Holloway & Nicholas Shatan — 2019-03-05T06:00:00Z

How can minority- and women-owned businesses overcome structural disadvantages to building wealth through entrepreneurship? Emily Holloway and Nicholas Shatan assess minority- and women-owned business enterprise (M/WBE) procurement policies in New York City and show that while these programs are designed to generate equitable access to business growth, M/WBE participants are not receiving enough contracts—however, if implemented more strategically and equitably, such policies have the potential

- Debates / New York, Brooklyn, Bronx, United States, accessibility, procurement, women, gender, ethnicity, race, businesses, minorities, entrepreneurship

Citizen Outsider: Racism, Marginalization, and Immigration in France

Jean Beaman — 2017-05-31T15:28:53Z

As refugee crises have emerged and immigration has increased in many regions of the world, several Western countries have become highly nationalistic, with debates surrounding border control and citizenship often dominating political conversation. But it's not just newcomers who have raised these discussions. Based on her forthcoming book, this piece by Jean Beaman shows how second-generation immigrants from North Africa in France, who are legally French citizens, get treated as outsiders and

- From the Field / France, immigration, banlieue, Île-de-France, ethnicity, Paris region, racism, Paris, suburbs, discrimination, migration, race, citizenship, identity, North Africans, Maghrebi, second generation, marginalization, citizen outsiders, cultural citizenship, nationality

Filming Ethnic Diversity in New York

Stéphane Tonnelat & translated by Christina Mitrakos — 2016-10-21T08:23:11Z

Frederick Wiseman's fortieth documentary film, In Jackson Heights (2015), returns to an urban theme explored in previous films such as Central Park (1989) and Public Housing (1997). This time he chose an entire New York City neighborhood characterized by great racial and ethnic diversity.
Frederick Wiseman's latest documentary, In Jackson Heights, plunges us into a three-hour uninterrupted exploration of the institutions, the streets, and the concerns of the inhabitants of a multiethnic

- Reviews / immigration, gentrification, ethnicity, New York, neighborhood, community, Queens, institution, street, film, documentary, diversity, Featured

The French Republic and the Paris Spring

Gregory Smithsimon — 2016-09-06T05:00:00Z

Has the French Spring arrived yet? Gregory Smithsimon documents La Nuit Debout, a self-named social movement that has taken root in one of Paris's main squares, where demonstrators have gathered since March 31 to protest the rollback of labor rights, repressive national security and refugee policies, political corruption, and indifference to ecological crisis. The main challenge for such movements, he argues, is to bridge the divide between the newly disenfranchised and those who were never

- From the Field / France, public space, ethnicity, intégration, social movement, Paris, protest, race, integration, Occupy

Social Norms and Resistance on the City Bus

Sofya Aptekar — 2015-05-05T04:50:00Z

While subways are hailed as the quintessential New York experience, with their own museum, T-shirts, and lore, the city's buses often get forgotten or, worse, imbued with a reputation of lawlessness due to its often poor and minority riders. Sofya Aptekar counters this common myth by showing how social order and morality play out among diverse populations on the buses of Astoria in Queens.
“Only black people take the bus.” This pronouncement came from Levent, one of my students in an adult

- From the Field / public space, ethnicity, public transportation, transport, New York, minorities, mass transit, race, bus, civility, Queens, Astoria, Featured

When Predator Becomes Prey: Rental Housing in Low-Income Minority Neighborhoods

Clément Théry — 2015-02-02T11:00:00Z

In the growing low-income rental market, predator and prey roles can shift, as landlords and tenants alike can fall victim to predatory cliques led by lawyers with local knowledge and a promise to help. Clément Théry's extensive research finds that affordable housing policy must recognize the threats low-income tenants face in the private market.
Most accounts of the rental housing market in low-income minority neighborhoods point to the role of major corporations with connections to

- From the Field / gentrification, ethnicity, housing, United States, New York, landlords, minorities, rental, poverty, race, housing crisis, insecurity, rent, rental housing

Professionalisation, gentrification and welfare reform: 20 years of socio-spatial change in London

Manuel Appert & Anaïs Collet & Chris Hamnett — 2013-06-19T04:55:00Z

The 2008 financial crisis called time on a long period of economic transformation in European cities that has seen their socio-spatial structures change radically. The conventional wisdom, in line with the works of Sassen, is that social inequalities have increased, but Chris Hamnett, interviewed by Metropolitics, takes a more finely shaded view, and invites us to take a closer look at the trajectories of ethnic minorities and the impacts of welfare reform.
Major cities across the world have

- Interviews / gentrification, ethnicity, housing, housing policy, inequalities, welfare state, urban regeneration, globalization, socio-spatial inequalities, polarization, displacement, metropolization, replacement, race, video, Featured

The New French Ghettos

Hervé Marchal & Jean-Marc Stébé & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2010-12-16T10:53:18Z

Are housing projects in France – particularly the French slums euphemistically termed Zones Urbaines Sensibles (ZUS for short) – comparable to American ghettos: i.e. enclaves of poverty resulting from geographic and ethnic segregation? While some insist there is no comparison between the two, the authors of the present article argue that current ethnic segregation processes in France are increasingly producing fully-fledged ghettos.
The question posed here is whether the term “ghetto” applies

- Debates / ghetto, ethnicity, segregation, housing projects, social housing, housing estates, race