Metropolitics

On a Road to Nowhere? Military Urbanism and the Architecture of Segregation

Tim Cunningham — 2024-05-03T05:00:00Z

Comparing the experiences of Belfast, Northern Ireland, with the United States, Tim Cunningham shows how physical barriers, especially roads, can precipitate the dismembering of targeted communities from the wider city ecosystem, in turn accentuating patterns of spatial inequality and deprivation.
By the late 1960s, Belfast was experiencing many of the secular challenges that afflicted industrial cities across western Europe and the US at that time (Bryan 2012). Economic crises precipitated

- Essays / Belfast, Northern Ireland, Ireland, United Kingdom, United States, infrastructure, segregation, urban planning, urbanism, military urbanism, socio-spatial inequalities, barriers

Covid-19 in Seine-Saint-Denis (2/2): How the Health System Exacerbates Inequalities

Audrey Mariette & Laure Pitti & translated by Oliver Waine — 2021-09-24T05:00:00Z

Although public health measures and local solidarity have helped mitigate the impact of the coronavirus epidemic, the département of Seine-Saint-Denis, whose health infrastructure has been profoundly weakened by reforms in recent decades, was more severely affected than other parts of France.
The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed and increased the accumulation of social inequalities in Seine-Saint-Denis: it aggravates the already degraded health status of the urbanized and racialized working

- From the Field / Covid-19, coronavirus, pandemic, health, inequalities, socio-spatial inequalities, Seine-Saint-Denis, Paris region, France, Île-de-France

Covid-19 in Seine-Saint-Denis (1/2): When the Pandemic Entrenches Health Inequalities

Audrey Mariette & Laure Pitti & translated by Oliver Waine — 2021-09-17T05:00:00Z

The Seine-Saint-Denis département, to the northeast of Paris, was hit particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic. In the first of two articles, Audrey Mariette and Laure Pitti present their analysis of the epidemic within the département, highlighting its impact in terms of regional inequalities in health.
From the very beginning of the first lockdown, on March 17, 2020, a number of French media outlets reported on the social inequalities that were emerging in the face of the current

- From the Field / Covid-19, coronavirus, pandemic, health, inequalities, socio-spatial inequalities, Seine-Saint-Denis, Île-de-France, Paris region, France

Rio de Janeiro: An (Inequitably) Connected City?

Francesca Pilo' & translated by Oliver Waine — 2018-09-21T05:00:00Z

The tangled webs of electrical wires, a symbol of the favelas, are also the sign of an electricity service that remains profoundly unequal and uncertain in Brazilian cities. Francesca Pilo' considers the varying quality of electricity distribution in Rio de Janeiro, and shows how this network contributes to dynamics of urban fragmentation that go beyond the simple dichotomy between shanty towns and prosperous neighborhoods.
Despite the universal nature of electricity provision, in terms of

- From the Field / inequalities, energy, networks, utilities, urban public service, Global South, socio-spatial inequalities, Latin America, Brazil, favela, Rio de Janeiro, urban technical networks, electricity, social division of space, fragmentation, service provision, distribution, urban services

Institutional Roadblocks to Achieving Environmental Justice Through Public Participation: The Case of CSO Control in US Cities

Rebekah Breitzer — 2018-01-24T06:00:00Z

Rather than meaningfully involving representatives of environmental-justice communities in decisions about the hazards that disproportionately affect their health, public participation efforts initiated by federal and municipal agencies often perpetuate inequities. Rebekah Breitzer argues that the problem stems in part from the adoption of social diffusion theory, which conditions policymakers to think of low-income people as targets for behavior modification rather than as potential

- Essays / participation, environment, inequalities, water, New York, socio-spatial inequalities, citizens, Philadelphia, environmental justice, combined sewer overflow, social diffusion theory

Territorial Equality in France: A Historical Perspective

Matthew Wendeln — 2014-06-04T04:50:00Z

Once the basis of French regional planning, the goal of national balance has made a comeback in France under the banner of “territorial equality”. The postwar experience suggests that redistributive regional policies can promote growth in a period of economic turbulence.
Over the past two decades, the twin goals of competition and competitiveness have gained increasing sway in French urban and regional policies (Baudelle and Montabone 2008, p. 3). Following the Left's national victory in

- Essays / France, urban planning, decentralization, territorial development, metropolis, socio-spatial inequalities, regional planning, territorial equality, economic development, metropolitan areas, region

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