The Racialized History of Philadelphia’s Toxic Public Schools

Editor’s note: This is the fourth post in our theme for January 2022, Urban Environmentalism. Additional entries can be seen at the end of this article. By Erika M. Kitzmiller and Akira Drake Rodriguez The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred national conversations about the substandard conditions in our nation’s public schools. Research shows that indoor air […]

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The perils of participation

Editor’s note: This is the seventh in a series of articles during April that examine the construction of the Interstate Highway System over the past seven decades. The series, titled Justice and the Interstates, opens up new areas for historical inquiry, while also calling on policy makers and the transportation and urban planning professions to […]

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Why We Need a Miami School of Urbanism

By Julio Capó Jr. and Rebecca Friedman Miami is one of the most important cities in the United States and the Americas. Yet, its history, culture, politics, and overall meaning are still largely caricatured through myth, stigma, and hyperbole. These misrepresentations, often even fantasies, are all deeply rooted in the region’s layered past and relationship […]

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Black Brain Drain: African-Americans, Class, and Miami

By Chanelle Rose On August 20, 2020, the Miami Herald featured an article titled “‘A History of Broken Promises: Miami Remains Separate and Unequal for Black Residents.” After providing a comprehensive look at the stark racial disparities in housing, income, education, employment, and government that continues to disproportionately impact African Americans, the newspaper reported: “one […]

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Approaching an Impossible City

By N. D. B. Connolly I sometimes recall a chance conversation from the early 2000s that feels increasingly unreal with every passing year. I can’t remember if it happened at a conference in Tempe, Arizona, or Portland, Maine. I do recollect that I was a graduate student on the very front end of a dissertation, […]

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Can Sports Save a City? The 1989 Miami Riots

By Seth Weitz On January 16, 1989, Miami police officer William Lozano shot Black motorcyclist Clement Lloyd, killing both Lloyd and his passenger, Allen Blanchard.  The shooting sparked several days of riots and brought to an end a tumultuous, but transformative, decade in Miami’s relatively short history. Dubbed the 1989 Miami Riots, they marked the […]

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The Archaeology of Miami’s Labor History

By Thomas Castillo Migration, wealth, racism, ethnic diversity, and tourism are the likely quick associations one would make about Miami’s history. Miami, of course, is a city proper, but it also is the label that includes the entire urban region of Miami-Dade County. I, for example, no longer try to distinguish my hometown, Hialeah, adjacent […]

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Magic City and Fairyland: Miami’s 20th Century, an Overview and Bibliography

Editor’s note: March kicks off The Metropole’s coverage of its Metropolis of the Month: Miami. We begin with our usual overview/bibliography to be followed each week with at least one article on the city for the month. In Michael Mann’s 2006 film, Miami Vice, detectives Sonny Crocket and Ricardo Tubbs jump from pastel-hued 1980s television […]

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Radical Movements in 1960s L.A. — A Review of Set the Night on Fire

Jon Wiener and Mike Davis. Set the Night on Fire: L. A. in the Sixties. New York: Verso Books, 2020. Reviewed by Ryan Reft Anyone who chooses to focus on Southern California history must consult the work of Mike Davis. Full stop. Keep in mind you don’t necessarily have to agree with Davis, but you […]

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The Carceral Landscape of Historic Fort Snelling at Bdote: An Interview with Katherine Hayes

By Avigail Oren The recent work of historical anthropologist Katherine Hayes has focused on decolonizing the narratives interpreted at public heritage sites, including St. Paul’s Historic Fort Snelling at Bdote. The United States military constructed Fort Snelling in 1819-20 to protect the area’s fur trade, a role it served until Minnesota gained statehood in 1858 […]

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