Cracked Foundations: An Interview with Michael Glass

Interviewed by Ryan Reft In Cracked Foundations: Debt and Inequality in Suburban America, Michael Glass explores the growth of Long Island’s suburbs as a proxy for the nation. In particular, Glass reveals the role that debt and debt financing played in constructing a suburban landscape that by the 1950s and 60s had become mired in […]

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Excerpt: A Slumless America: Mary K. Simkhovitch and The Dream of Affordable Housing by Betty Boyd Caroli

This article includes excerpts from A Slumless America: Mary K. Simkhovitch andthe Dream of Affordable Housing by Betty Boyd Caroli and published by OxfordUniversity Press in the US © Caroli 2/2/26. Used by permission. All rightsreserved. Footnotes have been removed to ease reading. Lectures formed the centerpiece of Mary’s days, and she planned carefully to take […]

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Barrier Breakers: Four African American Women Activists Who Shaped Pittsburgh’s Black Neighborhood Identity

By Dan Holland Pittsburgh’s mid-twentieth century renaissance is often hailed as a transformational makeover for a city desperately trying to escape its smoky past. Male leaders such as Pittsburgh Mayor David Lawrence (1889-1966), who would become Pennsylvania’s 37th governor, Richard King Mellon (1899-1970), the Mellon Bank financier, and Edgar Kaufmann (1885-1955), who directed Kaufmann’s Department […]

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