Metropolitics

We Have Been Here Before: Crisis, Response, and the Stasis of Urban Policy

Robert W. Lake — 2021-06-29T05:00:00Z

The disruptions produced by the global pandemic have spawned predictions of sweeping change that are unlikely to materialize. An example from a century ago explains why, and what we can do about it.
The front-page headline in the New York Times on May 6, 2021, optimistically announced a turning point in the ravages of the Covid‑19 pandemic in the United States. “Americans have entered a new, hopeful phase of the pandemic,” the Times reported, ushering in a “newfound optimism […] buoyed by a

- Essays / crisis, coronavirus, Covid-19, pandemic, history, urban policy, war, social change

Electricity in War-Torn Aleppo: A New Form of Urban Management

Youssef Diab & Abboud Hajjar & translated by Oliver Waine — 2018-11-23T06:00:00Z

In Syria, electricity is one of the sectors most adversely affected by the war. New means of electricity production, provided by private individuals, are being developed to make up for the public sector's shortcomings. In examining the case of Aleppo, Abboud Hajjar and Youssef Diab have analyzed the creation of a marketplace for subscriptions to neighborhood electricity generators and the involvement of city dwellers in the day-to-day management of this sector.
Management of the electricity

- Essays / energy, networks, utilities, urban public service, war, Syria, urban technical networks, electricity, electricity generators, urban services, Aleppo

The Boys of Sarajevo's War Tunnel

Luka Lucić — 2016-01-12T06:00:00Z

What are the impacts of war upon young people's psychological development? Research with young men who survived Sarajevo's siege sheds new light on how young people draw upon their social and spatial environment to make sense of violent experiences.
“… The next moment I was walking in a narrow passage reeking of urine and sweat. The tunnel was about five feet high, so I had to hunch down or I would hit my head. Dirt and water dripped on us, and we slogged through ankle-deep mud. I was

- From the Field / conflict, adolescents, development, teenagers, youth, affordances, war, siege, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina