Category: Metropolis of the Month

Reading ‘Akka’s Khans

.Reading time 34 minutes.

Editor’s note: This is the fifth entry in our theme for May, Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. by Francesco Anselmetti Entering ‘Akka in November 1693, ‘Abdel Ghani al-Nabulsi was overcome with disappointment. “We arrived at ‘Akka—a ruined town”, the Damascene intellectual writes, “its walls destroyed, the eye of its castle gouged out, the fruits of […]

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The Jewish Quarter of Saïda: Intertwined Displacements and Memories of Absence in a Southern Lebanese City

.Reading time 36 minutes.

Editor’s Note: This is the fourth entry in our theme for the month of May: Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean by Molly Oringer “The rabbis prayed here, in Saïda’s synagogue,” recalled Basma, a Palestinian woman in her mid-thirties. It was early 2020, and we stood gathering in a courtyard typical of the medieval neighborhood, Ḥarat […]

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The Center at the Edge: The Beach in Mid-Century Alexandria

.Reading time 32 minutes.

Editor’s note: This is the third entry in our theme for May, Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. by Alexandra Camille Schultz Introduction: From Edge to Center[1] In the early twentieth century, more people began to spend organized leisure time at the beach, including in Egypt. Indeed, by the end of World War II, the Mediterranean […]

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The Urban Tapestry of the Eastern Mediterranean—An Overview

.Reading time 16 minutes.

Editor’s Note: This is the first in our theme for the month of May: Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. by Zeead Yaghi The social, urban, and political fabric of cities across the Eastern Mediterranean have long shared material, cultural, and architectural commonalities, influenced by factors such as travel, commercial capitalism, and shared governance. Whether the […]

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San Diego’s South Bay Annexation of 1957: Water Insecurity, Territorial Expansion, and the Making of a US-Mexico Border City

.Reading time 43 minutes.

Editor’s note: In anticipation of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History’s (SACRPH) 2024 conference to be held in San Diego on the campus of the University of California San Diego, The Metropole’s theme for February is San Diego. This is the third of four entries for the month. For more information about […]

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America’s Finest City? An Overview & Bibliography of San Diego

.Reading time 45 minutes.

Editor’s note: In anticipation of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History’s (SACRPH) 2024 conference to be held in San Diego on the campus of the University of California San Diego, The Metropole’s theme for February is San Diego. This is the first of four entries for the month. For more information about […]

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Heroin and Chocolate City: Black Community Responses to Drug Addiction in the Nation’s Capital, 1967-1973

.Reading time 54 minutes.

By Ryan Reft “The cost to the community of drug-related crime is staggering,” Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Court of General Sessions Harold H. Greene asserted to the United States Senate in June of 1970. Accepting more “conservative estimates,” Greene suggested that 10,000 addicts resided in the District of Columbia, spending “$40 to […]

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