urban history

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  11/23/2022
  

  Taking a Longer View, the Crime Spike Isn't a Mystery, but Solutions aren't Easy Enough for Politicians

  by Patrick Sharkey

  Crime is a whole-society problem that is experienced locally; solutions require deep reforms and can't be subjected to the shifting attention of politicians in an election year. 

• 
• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  11/18/2022
  

  Black Family History Opens New Archives

  by Paula C. Austin, Catherine Nelson and Donna Payne Wilson

  Paula Austin's history of Black Washington depended on the knowledge and memorial work of generations of Black families, who have preserved history that is not kept in traditional archives. 

• 
• SOURCE: N + 1
  11/11/2022
  

  Mike Davis Forced Readers to Embrace Specificity

  by Gabriel Winant

  The recently deceased radical scholar never allowed the particularity of historical moments to disappear under theoretical abstraction, which made his work powerful and compelling. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Metropole
  11/17/2022
  

  Immigrant Merchants and Law-and-Order Politics in Detroit

  by Kenneth Alyass

  The Chaldean community of Detroit became a significant middleman-minority through the operation of small stores in working-class and majority-Black neighborhoods. As white flight and disinvestment created increasingly dire conditions, they also became a constituency for aggressive policing. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Metropole
  11/3/2022
  

  The Tyranny of the Maps: Rethinking Redlining

  by Robert Gioielli

  The four-color mortgage security maps created by New Deal-era bureaucrats and bankers have become a widely-known symbol of housing discrimination and the racial wealth gap. But does the public familiarity with the maps obscure the history of housing discrimination? And what can historians do about that?

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  11/1/2022
  

  Black-Brown Solidarity has been Elusive in Los Angeles

  by Erin Aubry Kaplan

  For decades, the increasing Latino presence in previously Black neighborhoods in South Los Angeles has raised concerns about political representation and hopes for a cross-racial movement for a more just city. Recent leaked city councl tapes show things are far from settled. 

• 
• SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
  10/26/2022
  

  California Historians and Writers Remember Mike Davis

  Matt Garcia, William Deverell and others share personal reflections on their personal and professional intersections with the mold-breaking historian and activist. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  10/25/2022
  

  Mike Davis, 1946-2022

  by Jon Wiener

  "Mike hated being called “a prophet of doom.” Yes, LA did explode two years after City of Quartz; the fires and floods did get more intense after Ecology of Fear, and of course a global pandemic did follow The Monster at Our Door."

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  10/19/2022
  

  LA Council Racism Shows Ethnic Politics Covers for War by Landlords on Renters

  The recorded remarks in a council meeting show that while Angelenos have been encouraged to vote along ethnic lines, their representatives have been more intersted in catering to politically powerful landlords and developers. 

• 
• SOURCE: ScienceNews
  10/13/2022
  

  Drone Photos Give New Insight into Mesopotamian City Structure

  Evidence of separate clusters of urbanization on islands separated by marshland suggests that ancient Lagash did not grow out from one administrative and ceremonial center but was a polycentric urban zone. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Globe
  10/5/2022
  

  The Limits of Nonprofit Urban Development in Boston

  by Claire Dunning

  In Boston, nonprofit agencies became the principal vehicle for redevelopment. While they could empower residents of poor communities to compete for grants and negotiate with city authorities, they couldn't make a deep impact on inequality in the city and let city agencies off the hook for discriminatory policies. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/4/2022
  

  Greg Melville Tells America's History Through its Cemeteries

  "What does the act of memorializing, who is remembered and who is left out, tell us about how people lived, what they valued, and the way we live now?"

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  9/27/2022
  

  Recovering the Story of the Black Men who were the Nation's First Paramedics

  In Pittsburgh's Hill District in the 1960s, a group of Black men from a neighborhood where many were considered unemployable revolutionized emergency medical response. But the story of Freedom House has been suppressed. 

• 
• SOURCE: Noema
  9/22/2022
  

  The Lost Art of Maintenance

  The struggles of the New York transit system to preserve the useful life of its train cars, and to prevent problems before they occur, reflects deep and troubling changes in society's relationship to infrastructure and labor power. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/8/2022
  

  Mr. Biden, Tear Down this Highway

  It's time to stop expanding the urban highways that divide communities, perpetuate racial segregation and harm health, and to consider removing them entirely, argues one architectural designer. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  9/6/2022
  

  What's Causing a Half Century of "Black Flight"?

  Despite political rhetoric from some quarters, suburbanization has been undermining the association of Black America with central cities – in large part because of the disinvestment and abandonment of urban communities. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/4/2022
  

  Landmark Building Embodies Past and Present of DC's Black Community

  The True Reformer Building in Washington is likely the first in the nation to be designed, funded, built and owned by African Americans as part of a comprehensive mission of economic and social self-reliance and uplift in the early 20th century. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  8/25/2022
  

  The Democratic Possibilities of Cruising

  by Jack Parlett

  As a practice, cruising exemplifies the possibilities of urban culture by bringing people into contact with strangers and enabling them to recognize common desires. The history of crusing shows it's not just about sex, but about democracy. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  8/24/2022
  

  Are Co-Ops the Lost Solution to the Housing Crisis?

  by Annemarie Sammartino

  At its 1966 opening, New York's Co-Op City was heralded as the solution to the nation's affordable housing crisis. What went right, what went wrong, and can it help guide better housing policy today?

• 
• SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
  8/17/2022
  

  Documentary Shows the Choices that Led to Deadly Streets

  Blaming distraction—by drivers, pedestrians or cyclists—for climbing road fatalities is a cop-out, says Jennifer Boyd. Americans need to be willing to question the basic design of roads and the priority they give to moving cars fast if they are serious about reducing road deaths.