Metropolitics

Multiplied Displacement Under Racial Capitalism: The “Migrant Crisis” in Berlin and New York City

René Kreichauf — 2025-01-31T10:17:52Z

Berlin and New York City, both self-proclaimed “migrant-friendly cities,” have long been destinations for internationally displaced migrants. Yet, as René Kreichauf explains, the façade of “migrant-friendly” belies racialized policies and practices that multiply displacement and dispossession. In New York, the inauguration of Donald Trump, and the mayor's fealty to him in the hopes of a pardon, portends an intensification of the violence that multiple displacement produces.
The 21st century

- Essays / migration, criminalization of migration, migration crisis, migrant workers, migrants, Berlin, New York, United States, Germany, asylum, displacement

Have Low-Income Households Been Failed by the Sale of Social Housing?

2023-01-06T06:00:00Z

Since 2018, the selling-off of social housing in France, as in other countries in Europe, has accelerated. What are the social effects of such measures? Matthieu Gimat, Manon Le Bon-Vuylsteke and Bruno Marot examine the lessons that France can learn from policies implemented in Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
In 2018, the approval in France of the so-called “ELAN law”, aimed at reforming property legislation, revived debates on the sale of social housing. While social

- From the Field / privatization, Germany, social housing, housing, United Kingdom, Netherlands

Underground Berlin: Where Infrastructure Meets Politics

Clarence Hatton-Proulx & translated by Oliver Waine — 2022-12-02T06:00:00Z

Water, electricity, gas: in Remaking Berlin, Timothy Moss presents a history of Berlin's infrastructure networks from 1920 to 2020, and shows how their operation has varied with successive political regimes.
For anyone interested in the history of cities, the case of Berlin is particularly rich. In less than a century, the German capital lived through a succession of different political regimes: the Weimar Republic, Nazi rule, the division of the city between two concomitant republics (one

- Reviews / Berlin, infrastructure, Germany, energy, history, networks, urban technical networks, utilities

Create, Don't Destroy: Laying the Foundation for a Public Discourse on Racial Justice in Germany

Janina L. Selzer — 2020-09-15T05:00:00Z

A night of violence left Stuttgart, a usually peaceful German city, with many unanswered questions. While politicians immediately condemned the violence as an attack on liberal democracy, some journalists saw the event as an uprising by young men of color against systemic racism. In this article, Janina Selzer makes a case for moving past these partial framings by accepting the possibility of a chaotic, multifaceted, and intersectional explanation for a destructive night.
In the German

- Essays / violence, Germany, racism, justice, racial justice, race, Stuttgart, riots, urban unrest

What Has Happened in Berlin Since 1989?

Thibaut de Ruyter & Olivier Gaudin & translated by Oliver Waine — 2020-06-12T05:00:00Z

Since the fall of the Wall in November 1989, Berlin has metamorphosed into one of the world's most popular urban tourism destinations. Architect, art critic and curator Thibaut de Ruyter has witnessed these transformations firsthand and shares his impressions (originally published in French in 2019) of what has changed in the reunified German capital.
What explains Berlin's attraction as a city?
At the end of the 1980s, the city was something of an island of marginality. This is still the

- Interviews / architecture, history, urban history, memory, Germany, Berlin

Photographing the Slums of 1900s Berlin

Danièle Voldman & translated by Oliver Waine — 2018-09-14T05:00:00Z

At the turn of the 20th century, the dramatically poor conditions of urban working-class housing was a cause of major concern in many cities, and would lead to the first social-housing experiments. Photography, then a booming new technology, was one of the means used to document this problem and raise awareness of conditions, as this book on working-class housing in Berlin illustrates.
Taking as their starting point a collection of photographs taken during the first 20 years of the 20th

- Reviews / housing, urban history, social housing, slum, Berlin, Germany, history, affordable housing, photography, working classes, blue-collar workers, manual workers, workers

The Territorial and Environmental Impacts of Climate Change in Germany

Dennis Becker & Stefan Greiving & Viola Schulze Dieckhoff & Thorsten Wiechmann — 2018-04-25T05:10:00Z

In Germany, the territorial and environmental impacts of climate change intersect in key ways with the nation's varied demography. In this pair of papers, researchers at TU Dortmund University urge spatial planners to synchronize their approaches to climate and demographic shifts at the city and regional levels.
---- Series: Climate Change and Social Change
A nationwide analysis by Dennis Becker and Stefan Greiving shows that population is growing in regions that are experiencing warming,

- From the Field / urban planning, Germany, resilience, climate change, sustainable urban planning, population, demographics, demography, capacity building, social change, demographic change, spatial planning, adaptation, adaptive capacity

Overcoming Climate Impacts Through Adaptive Capacity Building: Two Extreme Cases from Germany

Viola Schulze Dieckhoff & Thorsten Wiechmann — 2018-04-25T05:05:00Z

Climate change and demographic change interact. Impacts of climate change do not solely result from climate variability. Diverse settlement structures and a dynamic population development lead to heterogeneous, small-scale sensitivities in the face of climate variability and extreme events.
---- Series: Climate Change and Social Change Who is sensitive to these changes, at what time, and in which locations become central questions of spatial planning, with a view to fostering sustainable

Climate and Demographic Change: The Need for an Integrative Approach to Spatial Planning in Germany

Dennis Becker & Stefan Greiving — 2018-04-25T05:00:00Z

Climate change and demographic change are two megatrends that are often discussed without regard for their complex interactions. A nationwide analysis in Germany shows that population is growing in regions that are experiencing warming, while populations are declining in regions that are becoming more arid and thus more subject to water shortages. In both types of regions, the population is aging. Demographic changes can have different impacts on climate change and vice versa.
---- Series:

Dwelling—Living—Waiting: Transformations of a Refugee Reception Camp in Germany

Nina Riewe — 2017-11-21T06:00:00Z

In wealthy German cities, which have received tens of thousands of refugees from the Middle East and Northern Africa in recent years, officials have scrambled to provide adequate physical accommodation. In this paper, Nina Riewe explores refugees' negotiation of space in an initial reception camp in Hamburg. Considered under law to be “dwelling” but not actually “living” there, they continually struggle to maintain privacy, sociability, and physical and psychological comfort in a place

- From the Field / camps, refugees, Germany, migration, space, migrants, refugee camps, state of exception, zones of exception, Agamben, Hamburg, asylum