Metropolitics

Visible Minorities, Visible Risk: Toronto's Unequal Eviction Burden

Prentiss Dantzler & Khalil Martin & Abigail Meza — 2025-09-16T05:00:00Z

In Toronto, who gets evicted isn't random—it follows the city's racial and economic divides. Canada's data practices hide crucial details about who is most at risk.
Evictions are a leading cause of housing insecurity in cities worldwide, disproportionately affecting lower-income households and non-white racialized groups. In Canada, although attention to evictions is growing, there is limited research available. As the most populous city in the country, Toronto is home to a diverse set of

- Essays / evictions, social class, poverty, housing, tenants, rental, rental housing, minorities, precarity, Canada, Toronto

Fixing the Accessibility Gap in Municipal Procurement

Emily Holloway & Nicholas Shatan — 2019-03-05T06:00:00Z

How can minority- and women-owned businesses overcome structural disadvantages to building wealth through entrepreneurship? Emily Holloway and Nicholas Shatan assess minority- and women-owned business enterprise (M/WBE) procurement policies in New York City and show that while these programs are designed to generate equitable access to business growth, M/WBE participants are not receiving enough contracts—however, if implemented more strategically and equitably, such policies have the potential

- Debates / New York, Brooklyn, Bronx, United States, accessibility, procurement, women, gender, ethnicity, race, businesses, minorities, entrepreneurship

Closed Quarters

William Helmreich — 2016-12-13T06:00:00Z

As we contemplate an era marked by official hostility to fair-housing laws, we would do well to heed the distinction between forced and voluntary segregation. Tracing the construction—both literal and cultural—of the ghetto, Mitchell Duneier's new book is a sensitive guide to the scholarship and history of Jews' and Blacks' intersecting paths through it. William Helmreich reads and reviews the work through his own reflections on contemporary New York City.
In today's world, the word ghetto is

- Reviews / ghetto, gentrification, segregation, racism, United States, New York, discrimination, minorities, race, ghettoization, race relations

The Crisis of Geographical Imagination in Turkey

Luka Lucić — 2016-06-21T05:00:00Z

Ethnic, nationalistic and social tensions are at an all-time high in Turkey, exacerbated by the re‑emergence of the “Kurdish problem” and the influx of Syrian refugees fleeing the war. Minorities are persecuted and academics denouncing exactions are targeted by the government. Luka Lucić compares this situation to the collapse of Yugoslavia and warns of possible dire times to come.
There was an old joke often told in Sarajevo during the early days of the siege (1992‑1995). All across former

- Essays / refugees, segregation, Turkey, crisis, minorities, ethnonationalism, Syria, former Yugoslavia, Kurdistan, persecution, ideology

Clitoral Mass: A Women-of-Color Ride Through Los Angeles

Jennifer Candipan — 2015-06-02T05:00:00Z

Every year in the summer, a group of women, women of color, and women-identified riders cycle through the city of Los Angeles to reclaim space and visibility in a city that too often ignores them and their needs. Jennifer Candipan, a participant and researcher, describes and analyzes the reasons and effects of the 2014 Clitoral Mass ride.
On a mid-August Saturday, nearly 300 bicyclists descended upon Downtown Los Angeles's Grand Park to kick off Clitoral Mass 2014, an annual 33‑mile,

- From the Field / public space, gender, United States, Los Angeles, bicycles, Lefebvre, minorities, right to the city, cycling

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

When Predator Becomes Prey: Rental Housing in Low-Income Minority Neighborhoods

Clément Théry — 2015-02-02T11:00:00Z

In the growing low-income rental market, predator and prey roles can shift, as landlords and tenants alike can fall victim to predatory cliques led by lawyers with local knowledge and a promise to help. Clément Théry's extensive research finds that affordable housing policy must recognize the threats low-income tenants face in the private market.
Most accounts of the rental housing market in low-income minority neighborhoods point to the role of major corporations with connections to

- From the Field / gentrification, ethnicity, housing, United States, New York, landlords, minorities, rental, poverty, race, housing crisis, insecurity, rent, rental housing

Ethnic discrimination in social housing

François Bonnet & translated by Oliver Waine — 2014-03-12T05:50:00Z

Valérie Sala Pala has investigated the extent to which ethnic criteria come into play in the allocation of social housing in Marseille in France and in Birmingham in England. In her recent book, she presents a detailed analysis of discriminatory processes that questions the usefulness of the notion of racism.
Valérie Sala Pala's book considers the way in which ethnic criteria are employed in the allocation of social housing in Marseille (in France, the nation of republican universalism) and

- Reviews / France, housing, racism, Marseille, social housing, United Kingdom, discrimination, minorities, Birmingham (UK), race, England

The March for Equality and Against Racism: the “Migrants' May 1968”?

Muriel Cohen & translated by Oliver Waine — 2013-12-04T05:45:00Z

Abdellali Hajjat looks back at the event that went down in history as the “Marche des Beurs” (“Arabs' March”), and its beginnings three decades ago in a suburb of Lyon. Through a detailed analysis of the role of local and national contexts that led to the march, he underlines the political misunderstandings it generated and the historic opportunity that was missed for closer links between the Left and working-class neighbourhoods across France.
The title of Abdellali Hajjat's work, La Marche

- Reviews / immigration, racism, working-class neighborhoods, minorities, race

Gentrification as a driver of social and racial tensions: the case of Brixton

Amélie Bertholet & translated by Oliver Waine — 2013-10-16T04:55:00Z

(In)famous for the various riots that have occurred there since the 1980s, the working-class district of Brixton in south London has recently seen an influx of middle-class residents who prize the area for its diversity and tranquillity. However, as Amélie Bertholet shows, this trend does not mean the end of the area's troubles.
Brixton, a neighbourhood in the inner-London borough of Lambeth, has been marked by a strong Jamaican presence since the end of the Second World War. This “[ethnic]

- From the Field / gentrification, social diversity, London, violence, minorities