The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
Once again, we had a record number of entries in our graduate student blogging contest! Our 2024 theme, “Connection,” inspired submission by twelve students whose work intersects with urban history. Online publications such as The Metropole can provide an outlet for writing that allows for creativity and experimentation, both in content and how information is […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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. […]
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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 […]
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This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by Matthew Adair For many Americans, summer is a season of travel. The ritual of leaving home for somewhere more relaxing (or invigorating) has a long history. Since at least antiquity, “escaping the city” has been a common tradition among the […]
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This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by Jackie Wu Chinese-owned laundries dotted the urban landscape of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from the late nineteenth century well into the post-World War II years. Tucked in between houses, restaurants, and other businesses, the number of Chinese laundries peaked in the 1930s […]
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This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by David Bruno During the mid to late twentieth century, shopping centers in America served as community cornerstones, providing communal spaces and establishing national social and cultural connections based on mutual shopping experiences and product consumption. Weakening regional differences and contributing […]
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This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by Jeremy Lee Wolin During the era of formal segregation, Black communities across the United States created thousands of schools to provide the education that white schools would not allow their students to receive. From the 1950s to the 1970s, the same […]
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The Metropole 