The Latinx City: Overview and Bibliography

October 31, 2024.Reading time 57 minutes.

Editor’s Note: This is the first post in this month’s theme, The Latinx City By Ryan Reft If you’ve been even remotely paying attention in 2024, immigration and its impact on America has been a hot topic this year (and to be honest, nearly every election cycle since the 1990s). Granted, it’s a discussion largely […]

Where to Start? An Urban History of the Bight of Biafra

October 17, 2024.Reading time 12 minutes.

The Metropole Bookshelf is an opportunity for authors of forthcoming or recently published books to let the UHA community know about their new work in the field. By Joseph Godlewski I was trained to be suspicious of origins. The search for metaphysical starting points has always seemed haunted by romantic essentialist beliefs and fraught with […]

One Hundred Years of the Renaissance Theater and Ballroom/Casino

October 15, 2024.Reading time 23 minutes.

This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by Bridget Kelly What makes a site special? What must happen there for society to decide that a place, a building, a history is worth preserving? In 1991, the New York City Landmark Preservations Committee (LPC) considered these questions when determining […]

To (Not) Get Lost in the City of Phnom Penh

October 10, 2024.Reading time 20 minutes.

This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by Zhiyi Wang “Everyone gets lost in Phnom Penh,” commented a Cambodian friend when we were trying to pinpoint a location on Google Maps. He is from Battambang, which along with Siem Reap and Phnom Penh are Cambodia’s largest and most […]

My Street Looks Different Now: Oral History and the Anti-Redlining Movement

October 8, 2024.Reading time 26 minutes.

This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by Joshua Rosen In 1974, when Richard Wise was hired as a community organizer in Boston’s Jamaica Plain,[1] there were thirty-one abandoned buildings in the center of the neighborhood. He remembers cars burning underneath the elevated train line nearly every week.[2] Banks […]

After the Same Rainbow’s End: Purists, Pragmatists & Racial Advocates Duke It Out in Savannah

October 3, 2024.Reading time 25 minutes.

This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by Emi Higashiyama Savannah, Georgia, may not be the most obvious place to look for a decades-long battle over city planning, but recent developments over the Civic Center proved to be a contest that revived old feuds and started new ones. […]

Architecture Matters? A Review of “The Architecture Of Urbanity: Designing For Nature, Culture And Joy”

October 2, 2024.Reading time 22 minutes.

Vishaan Chakrabarti. The Architecture Of Urbanity: Designing For Nature, Culture And Joy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2024. Reviewed by Dasha Kuletskaya Can architects and other design professionals help tackle the global challenges humanity faces today? Can design be a tool to address climate change, rising inequality, and the spread of right-wing populism? Can architecture […]

Connecting the City to the Sea: The Development of the National Aquarium in Baltimore

October 1, 2024.Reading time 31 minutes.

This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by Weilan Ge American ecologist Loren Eiseley once said, “If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in the water.”[1] The National Aquarium in Baltimore (NAIB) puts this message at the entrance for all visitors to see, illustrating that […]