The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
By Avigail Oren We’re approaching the end of our Metropolis of the Month coverage of Columbia, SC, and I confess that I’m feeling sad about it. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with our many contributors and the response from you all, dear readers, has been so enthusiastic. My consolation is that we have one more […]
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Image above: 1919 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Ward 1, the African American neighborhood the university acquired and demolished through Urban Renewal. LBC&W’s Carolina Coliseum was built on the block just south of Greene Street, facing east onto Assembly Street. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of South Carolina Collection, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina. By […]
Read MoreMatthew G. Lasner Associate Professor, Urban Policy and Planning Hunter College, City University of New York Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? I am writing a new book tentatively entitled the rather cumbersome Bay Area Urbanism: Architecture, Real Estate, and Progressive Community Planning in the United States from the New […]
Read MoreDakota Irvin Doctoral Candidate in History University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill @ddirvin1 Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? I’m currently writing my dissertation on the history of the city of Ekaterinburg, Russia, during the Russian Revolution, Civil War, and first years of Soviet power (1917-1922). My research traces the […]
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Editor’s note: Both as part of our continuing coverage of the January Metropolis of the Month Columbia, S.C. and as a nod to the Martin Luther King holiday, University of Minnesota Professor of Journalism, Sid Bedingfield provides an account of how the Black press in Columbia and the state more broadly, proved integral to the burgeoning […]
Read MoreThe Metropole stormed into January with some great content, setting the tone for an exciting year. What were our New Years resolutions, you ask? We simply have one: to continue putting out the kind of great research and reflection that makes our blog the digital hub for urban history, read by experts and enthusiasts alike. […]
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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 Adam Arenson Adam Arenson. 2018. Banking on Beauty: Millard Sheets and Midcentury Commercial Architecture in California. Austin: University of Texas Press, 368 pp. 157 color and 17 […]
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By Robert Greene II The history of Columbia, and of South Carolina more generally, would look markedly different if it were not for the existence of the Congaree Swamp. Being a home for Native Americans, a place of mystery for Europeans, and a refuge for escaped slaves, Congaree Swamp—now a National Park—is a unique part […]
Read MoreFollowing the tweets from this weekend’s #AHA18, it seems that a central topic of conversation was the ways that new(ish) mediums like podcasting and blogs are allowing historians to share great, well-research stories about the past with new audiences. Fewer students in history classes & very few history prof jobs available, but history podcasts top […]
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By Daniel Wortel-London The land-value tax is coming back in vogue among municipal policy makers and scholars of urban studies. If real property consists of both structures and land, and if the value of land is determined by locational amenities produced by a community, then that community has a moral claim to this value– or […]
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