Metropolitics

The Cities We're Losing—The Cities We Need

Ahmed Allahwala — 2026-03-17T06:00:00Z

Although there is no shortage of work on gentrification, it rarely takes as its object of inquiry those “ordinary” places—diners, corner stores—that are lost. Yet, in The Cities We Need, Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani shows the importance of understanding how their loss impacts not only how we understand neighborhoods, but how we understand ourselves.
The Cities We Need explores what we lose when the spaces that anchor life in urban communities disappear. In this beautiful book, visual artist and

- Reviews / gentrification, nostalgia, place, placemaking, displacement, Brooklyn, New York, Oakland, everyday spaces

An Unexpected Victory in the Fight to Save Philadelphia Chinatown

Andrew Lee — 2025-10-14T05:00:00Z

Grassroots efforts to counter gentrification-inducing megaprojects often fail as elected officials negotiate various interests. Using the case of 76 Place in Philadelphia, Andrew Lee examines the nuanced interplay of forces that spared Chinatown from a new arena.
“When they raze these streets, I'll no longer know which way my toes are pointed.” — Dylan Tran, “My Soul Travels Between Three Cities”
On December 19th, 2024, Philadelphia City Council voted 12–5 to approve 76 Place, a

- From the Field / Chinatown, Philadelphia, gentrification, Pennsylvania, United States, mobilization

Unleashing Finance Capitalism in the City: An Interview with Isaac Rose, Author of The Rentier City

Jonathan Silver & Isaac Rose — 2025-06-24T05:00:00Z

Jonathan Silver interviews author and tenant organizer Isaac Rose about his book on housing financialization in Manchester, The Rentier City. They discuss the motivations for writing the book, how theory informs practice, and the influences that guided Rose as he wrote.
Isaac Rose, a tenant-union organizer in Manchester, recently launched a new book with Repeater, The Rentier City: Manchester and the Making of the Neoliberal Metropolis. In it, Rose unravels the causes of today's intensifying

- Interviews / housing, financialization, tenants, Manchester, United Kingdom, community organizing, gentrification, England, housing justice

Deconstructing Gentrification

Todd Swanstrom & Jason Hackworth — 2024-11-05T06:00:00Z

Can changing the way we understand the process of gentrification open possibilities for political and social change? Todd Swanstrom and Jason Hackworth debate this proposition.
Summary Deconstructing Gentrification – by Todd Swanstrom On the Significance of Gentrification in Low-Demand Environments: A Reply to Swanstrom – by Jason Hackworth Don't Let the Word “Gentrification” Drive Us Apart: A Rejoinder to Hackworth – by Todd Swanstrom
Deconstructing Gentrification – Todd Swanstrom

- Debates / gentrification

Manifested Stories

Rebecca Blythe Pryor — 2021-01-05T06:00:00Z

Rebecca Pryor traces the history of the revitalization of the Bronx River, illustrating an alternative narrative to the urban-frontier myth—one that centers Black and Brown communities and is community-generated.
At the beginning of the film The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019), which takes place in the not-so-distant future, a curbside preacher asks passersby why San Francisco is only now cleaning the Bay when residents have lived by its toxicity for decades. The cleanup is not for us,

- From the Field / New York, Bronx, urban regeneration, revitalization, gentrification, community-based organizations

When Measurement Matters: Displacement, Gentrification, Residential Mobility

H. Jacob Carlson — 2020-04-14T05:00:00Z

Scholarly studies of displacement resulting from gentrification are inconsistent in what they measure, and omit mechanisms of displacement.
Gentrification is a concern in communities across the country. As previously low-income neighborhoods see an influx of more affluent households, they are accompanied by rising rents, changing demographics, and a reshaping of the economic and cultural landscape. The preexisting residents see these changes in their community and worry that they and their

- Essays / gentrification, displacement, New York, residential mobility, housing, replacement

Unlikely Inter-Class Cooperation in Urbanizing Rural Colombia

Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría — 2020-02-25T06:00:00Z

Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría examines a case of rural gentrification outside of Bogotá, Colombia, and shows how long-time peasants and former factory workers and upper-middle-class newcomers collaborate across class lines to manage fundamental resources, such as water, and pressure the state to provide necessary infrastructure and services.
“A new neighbor welcomes you; your neighbor, nature,” claims a billboard on the road between La Calera, a small town, and Bogotá, the Colombian

- From the Field / Colombia, Latin America, Global South, South America, rural, Bogotá, gentrification, rural gentrification, urbanization, suburbanization, rururbanization, water, urban public service, urban services, urban technical networks, utilities, infrastructure, social class, networks, water access

Understanding the Causes of Eviction-Based Urban Displacement: Bringing Critical Urban Theory Back In

J. Revel Sims — 2019-09-24T05:00:00Z

Close analysis of eviction patterns in Dane County, Wisconsin, between 2000 and 2016 suggests that tenant poverty is not the sole driver of displacement, and that we must consider the importance of other structural factors.
Recent scholarship on eviction places the phenomenon within the context of increasing social and economic precariousness and the lack of affordable housing. This work exposes the importance of what was deemed a “hidden housing problem” within the social sciences (Hartman

- From the Field / displacement, critical urban theory, gentrification, evictions

Whose Bronx?: Decade of Fire Looks Back at a Complicated History of Neighborhood Abandonment and the Rise of Community Control in the South Bronx

Aly Hassell — 2019-07-02T05:05:00Z

Decade of Fire, a new documentary film by lifelong South Bronx resident and first-time filmmaker Vivian Vázquez Irizarry and co‑director Gretchen Hildebran, revisits the South Bronx of the 1970s, when a series of unchecked fires destroyed block after block of the neighborhood, displacing hundreds of thousands of residents.
Decade of Fire investigates the root causes of the fires and attempts to set the record straight about the complex confluence of events that let such flagrant neglect

- Reviews / New York, Bronx, housing, displacement, gentrification

Organizing Against Projet Gentrification: Housing Activism in a White-Supremacist Landscape in Montreal

Pierce Nettling — 2018-11-27T06:00:00Z

Housing activists in Montreal and Quebec have successfully sought to secure tenant rights and social housing for over 50 years at neighborhood, city and provincial level. Here, Pierce Nettling discusses how the continued reliance of left-wing parties on a white francophone political base mirrors the long-standing and systemic problems of racism in the province.
---- Series: Progressive Mayors and Urban Social Movements Montreal's left-based housing movements are rather unique in North

- Essays / gentrification, housing, racism, social housing, Montreal, public housing, Canada, affordable housing, progressive urban politics, race, mayors, progressive mayors, Quebec