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urban history



  • What "Crackhead" Really Meant in 1980s America

    by Donovan X. Ramsey

    The memories of politicians and police have been allowed to dominate our understanding of the emergence of crack cocaine in the 1980s. A new book seeks to elevate the voices of urban Black Americans and others who experienced it directly and still live with its effects.



  • Review: J.T. Roane Tells Black Philadelphia's History from the Margins

    by Charles W. McKinney

    Roane picks up a challenge offered by W.E.B. DuBois in his pioneering "The Philadelphia Negro" to understand the spaces of alternative and underground social life as important and formative parts of Black urban life in the Great Migration. 



  • Discovery: Vast Network of Connected Mayan Cities in Guatemala

    The discovery, using LIDAR technology, of more than 400 settlements connected by more than 100 miles of highways suggests that the Mayan civilization was even more developed than previously believed. The discovery also raises major issues of preservation and public access to the site. 



  • Brandon Johnson's Unlikely Leap from Labor Activist to Mayor

    by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

    The victory of the former teachers' union member over Paul Vallas, a career school privatizer with backing from Republicans and the police union, shows a widening rift between the centrist and left wings of the Democratic Party that is as important as the national blue-red division. 



  • Black San Franciscans Have Been Leaving—Could Reparations Bring them Back?

    A city commission has issued non-binding advisory recommendations for extensive cash reparations to Black residents and their families who were pushed out of now-valuable property through urban renewal. It's not likely that the local government will implement any of them, so activists are trying to help make housing more affordable.


  • Brandon Johnson Built a Coalition to Win in Chicago. Can He Keep it to Govern?

    by Gordon K. Mantler

    When Brandon Johnson takes office on Monday as Chicago's mayor, he will experience the same challenge that his political predecessor Harold Washington did in 1983: turning a winning electoral coalition into a durable governing coalition. It won't be easy, but progressive change in the city depends on it. 



  • Why a Long-Maligned Housing Style Endures in Leeds

    Once a progressive improvement on court-style housing in working class neighborhoods, then disfavored as cramped and lacking in privacy, urbanists look to Leeds's back-to-back rowhouses as a guide to more efficient and affordable housing for modern cities. 



  • The Police Aren't Part of Change in Chicago

    by Dan Berger

    A historian critiquing a recent book on Black Lives Matter argues that the political, fiscal and cultural influence of police is so broad that it's impossible to think of meaningful social reform in a society that includes modern police departments. 



  • Who's Really to Blame for America's Lousy Transit Systems?

    Historian Nicholas Dagen Bloom says that American politicians, especially at the municipal level, made a series of choices that diverted resources from mass transit to auto transportation. Neither racism nor the market nor secret conspiracies by industry made these choices inevitable.



  • Claiming a Latino Place in Chicago

    by Mike Amezcua

    Like their African American contemporaries, ethnic Mexicans in Chicago have a long history of organizing to overturn residential segregation. 



  • How Paris Kicked out the Cars

    Planners and politicians used post-WWII prosperity to remake Paris for cars, making it one of the most car-saturated big cities. Recent changes led by Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo have show what can happen when priority is given to air quality and public space (though not every Parisian agrees).