Metropolitics

Covid-19 Transformed New York's Destination Food Markets

Ivana Mellers — 2021-10-05T05:00:00Z

Ivana Mellers analyzes how New York's destination markets—key spaces of economic and social interactions—coped during the pandemic.
---- Series: New York Dossier: The Food Industry Faces the Covid-19 Pandemic Like supermarkets, restaurants, and coffee shops, New York City's three outdoor destination food markets—Queens Night Market, Bronx Night Market, and Smorgasburg—have been seriously impacted by the Covid‑19 pandemic. In March 2020, when organizers would ordinarily be planning their

- From the Field / Featured, market, markets, food, food culture, food industry, Covid-19, coronavirus, pandemic, New York, United States

Moving Inside City Limits: The Urban Mobility of Undocumented Youth

Stephen P. Ruszczyk — 2019-06-04T05:00:00Z

The urban context and public transportation shape how undocumented youths move within cities. In a comparison of New York City and Paris, Stephen Ruszczyk shows how cities can strengthen mobility for undocumented youths, and for all residents, regardless of legal status.
Five years after Liang's parents left him and their hometown of Wenzhou in southeastern China, Liang, who was then 13 years old, reunited with them in central Paris. He lacked a visa to enter France, and had taken a plane,

- From the Field / RESF, immigration, immigration control, immigration policy, youth, undocumented youth, illegality, public transportation, transport, mass transit, Paris, New York, Featured

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

Looking Inward, Across the Border

Harel Shapira — 2016-04-19T05:00:00Z

In the constellation of anti-immigrant politics in the United States, groups like the Minutemen, civilians who patrol the border with military gear, stand out for taking matters into their own hands. Harel Shapira explains that these militiamen are motivated not just by reflexive right-wing anti-immigrant ideology, but also by a nostalgia for their own lost worlds of work and meaning forged in military careers.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump has made the construction of a high border

- From the Field / immigration, United States, work, migration, borders, community, Minutemen, patrol, military, nostalgia, Mexico, immigration control, Featured

The Political Aesthetics of Drag

Shaka McGlotten — 2015-10-13T05:00:00Z

Drag, or the diverse art form and culture of performance that typically plays with gender and sex, is an integral part of vibrant urban life. It is also often decidedly activist and provocative. Anthropologist Shaka McGlotten uses ethnographic portraits of drag performers to explore how violent political conflict informs drag in New York City, Berlin and Tel Aviv.
Drag ecologies in New York City, Israel/Palestine, and Berlin
Drag is tied to gender impersonation and crossing, but it is also

- Essays / gender, Palestine, Berlin, New York, Israel, drag, feminism, BDSM, Featured, activism, video

Disarm the Police

Gregory Smithsimon — 2015-09-29T05:00:00Z

In the current political debates about discriminatory policing, there has been a lack of serious discussion of disarmament. Gregory Smithsimon argues that disarming the police is not only an obvious way to avoid more deaths at the hands of officers, but also a means towards cultivating more respectful relationships between the police and communities of color.
Responding to protests against repeated, blatant police abuse, politicians have met demands for meaningful change with an array of

- Debates / inequalities, police, discrimination, violence, brutality, disarmament, civil rights, police violence, Ferguson, Missouri, New York, Oakland, Baltimore, Featured

The Dangers of Security

Médéric Martin-Mazé & translated by Oliver Waine — 2015-05-22T04:30:00Z

In Against Security, Harvey Molotch highlights – through various examples, including the New York subway, airports, and post‑Katrina New Orleans – the way in which security agencies are increasingly replacing common sense with bureaucratic systems that, despite good intentions, in fact have numerous pernicious effects. In his conclusion, he makes a number of proposals for a more human and altruistic form of security.
No one was able to prevent Andreas Lubitz from sending the Airbus A320 he

- Reviews / public space, public transportation, New Orleans, Katrina, New York, security, mass transit, metro, subway, resilience, attacks, airport, bureaucracy, Featured

In Cathedrals of Craft: Workplaces for the New Elite Service, Retail, and Manual Labor Jobs

Richard E. Ocejo — 2015-05-12T05:00:00Z

As artisanal economies emerge in postindustrial cities, the symbolic language and craft culture of the industrial city remain strikingly apparent; a prime example of this is the growth, in gentrifying neighborhoods, of high-end bars, barbershops and butcher shops that draw on the romantic imagery of their traditional working-class counterparts. Richard E. Ocejo's exploration of New York City's Chelsea Market highlights the intersection of three 21st‑century urban transformations: shifts in the

- Essays / United States, work, food, retail, New York, food culture, craft work, postindustrialism, cultural omnivores, service sector, artisans, new economy, Featured

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

The Horseshoe Crab, our Environment and our Health

Lisa Jean Moore — 2014-12-15T05:50:00Z

Will we erase all animal diversity in the name of modernity, or will we follow the hints given by the study of the horseshoe crab? The entanglements of this ancestral animal with human activity point to the urgent need to accept the collective responsibility that comes with the Anthropocene era.
In North America, the ocean-dwelling horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus), a maroon prehistoric creature, crawls along the ocean floor with its helmet-like hard-shelled top and multiple appendages

- From the Field / health, environment, New York, global warming, sea-level rise, human animal, wildlife, Featured