The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
By Charles Lester With his most recent book, Charles Blow offers an intriguing proposition for Black empowerment–a mass migration of African Americans to the South. He argues that the project of northern and western migration of previous generations has given way to racial prejudice, de facto segregation, failing schools, chronic underemployment, few economic opportunities or […]
Read More
By Alan Lessoff The gaudy psychodrama that led to January’s trashing of the Capitol gave Americans even more to fret about during the already dreary months when those of us who adhered to public health advice were compelled to interact with the country mostly from home, through televisions and computer screens. As an historian who […]
Read MoreThis blog post is the first in a series of posts supporting the UHA’s inaugural Membership Drive. These posts will introduce you to some of the many amazing scholars, activists, teachers, and others in the UHA’s membership community, as well as highlight the role played by the UHA in the lives and careers of its […]
Read More
Hamilton, Peter E. Made in Hong Kong: Transpacific Networks and a New History of Globalization. New York: Columbia University Press, 2021. Reviewed by James Watson-Krips There are few places in the world quite like Hong Kong. Billed as “Asia’s World City,” it is today celebrated as much for its striking cityscape as its vibrant street […]
Read More
For the final installment in our series on the Cambridge Elements in Global Urban History, Alexia Yates presents the following essay-in-images that reflects on her recently published Element, Real Estate and Global Urban History. By Alexia Yates Between 1936 and 1941, the WPA Writer’s Program penned a study of New York City’s Black community. In […]
Read More
Mayor. Directed by David Osit. Rosewater Pictures, LLC, 2020. Reviewed by Maytal Mark City branding is not the topic one expects to dwell on in a documentary about Palestinian civil engineer and Ramallah mayor Musa Hadid. But Mayor director David Osit’s camera returns repeatedly to the visual symbol of the city’s prominent “WeRamallah” sign, built […]
Read More
By Dan Garodnick As New York City gets ready to choose its new mayor, one community is watching the results with particular interest. Having recently seen a decade of tumult across two mayoralties, the residents of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village understand that the occupant of Gracie Mansion matters to their safety and security. […]
Read More
The editors of the Cambridge Elements in Global Urban History join Lila Caimari, author of a forthcoming Element in the series, to talk about the volume, its relevance in the contemporary news landscape, and how the Element fits into Caimari’s research more broadly. Your Element is about the history of journalism and the media. What […]
Read More
Zubovich, Katherine. Moscow Monumental: Soviet Skyscrapers and Urban Life in Stalin’s Capital. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2021. Reviewed by Zinaida Osipova While many people seek to understand why the Soviet Union fell apart, Katherine Zubovich focuses on one of its enduring successes—the seven skyscrapers designed under Joseph Stalin that still dominate Moscow’s landscape. […]
Read More
By Richard Harris It is remarkable that few people take the trouble to show how cities matter. By ‘people’ I mean self-styled urbanists, those who write about cities, publish in ‘urban’ journals, and who for the most part, presumably, live in cities. And by ‘how cities matter’ I mean the ways in which the urban […]
Read More
The Metropole 