The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
Andra Chastain, PhD Assistant Professor of History Washington State University, Vancouver Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? I’m currently revising my book manuscript, which is a history of the metro system in Santiago, Chile. This project sparked my interest because its history crosses several key political divides in Chile’s history: it […]
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By Inbal Ofer As a social historian I have always found public services to be a fascinating domain of research. They are a meeting point between theories of progress and the practicality of everyday life, and between the aspirations of professionals, the dictates of national, regional and local bureaucracies, and the needs of different users. […]
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Debjani Bhattacharyya, PhD Professor and Chair for the History of the Anthropocene Department of History, University of Zürich Twitter: @itihaashtag Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? I am currently working on a project tentatively titled “Climate Futures’ Past: Law and Weather Science in the Indian Ocean World.” Ranging from the eighteenth […]
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David Hochfelder, PhD Associate Professor History Department, University at Albany, SUNY Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? My current research is on the history of urban renewal, in particular, a public/digital history of urban renewal in New York State we’re calling Picturing Urban Renewal. I and my two colleagues, Ann Pfau and […]
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By Rob Gioielli If you are an urbanist that studies or teaches transportation history, you’ve probably heard some version of the following at a party or from a student after class: “You know, General Motors destroyed the streetcar,” the person will tell you, often in a hushed, conspiratorial tone. “Bought all of them up and […]
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By Carl Abbott New Yorkers have gumption. They’ve got moxie. They don’t slow down and they don’t take crap from anyone. They’re also survivors who can sometimes figure out how to work together for the common good. That’s the shared message of two compelling and very different books by science fiction stars: N. K. Jemisin’s The […]
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By Avigail Oren We are reprising our Month of Academic Odes on the The Metropole because, as it turns out, winter 2021 was not the hoped-for end of the pandemic. Here we are, in February 2022, with all the more reason to embrace the positive (as long as it isn’t on a COVID test). Last […]
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Di Wang, PhD Distinguished Professor and Head, Department of History University of Macau Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? In recent years, I have focused on my project “Transformation of Urban China: Everyday Life during the Era of Commercialization.” In the recent three decades, nearly all Chinese cities have been rebuilt. […]
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Holtzman, Benjamin. The Long Crisis: New York and the Path to Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. Reviewed by Claire Dunning The notion of “crisis” may feel overplayed these days but remains pertinent when upheavals related to climate, democracy, health, and white supremacy continue to go unchecked. As governments respond too slowly or not […]
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Editor’s note: This is the fifth post in our theme for January 2022, Urban Environmentalism. Additional entries can be seen at the end of this article. By Amanda K. Philips de Lucas Regulating Urban Runoff Presently, cities across the United States battle a microscopic foe. The particulate matter of urban existence, during wet weather events, […]
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