London as Ocean: The Origins and Meanings of an Urban Metaphor

April 29, 2025.Reading time 38 minutes.

Editor’s note: This is the eighth post in our theme for April 2025, The City Aquatic. For additional entries in the series, see here By Christopher Ferguson In October 2015, “Ann C” of Grantham posted a review on Tripadvisor in which she praised Earl’s Sandwiches in Covent Garden as a “Pearl in the Ocean of […]

Constructing the “Fresh Coast”: Water and the Reinvention of the Post-Industrial City

April 23, 2025.Reading time 36 minutes.

Editor’s note: This is the seventh post in our theme for April 2025, The City Aquatic. For additional entries in the series, see here. By Michael Carriere On December 3, 2008, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett appeared at a day-long symposium on “concentrated poverty” in America, held at the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C. Barrett told […]

City Afloat: Rethinking the “Other” Side of Canton, 1757-1949

April 22, 2025.Reading time 32 minutes.

Editor’s note: This is the sixth post in our theme for April 2025, The City Aquatic. For additional entries in the series, see here. By Qingyun Lin There is no spectacle in the world more wonderful to a stranger’s eyes than the river population of the Celestial Empire.[1]—Osmond Tiffany (1823-1895) In May 1844, Osmond Tiffany—a […]

The Tides: Maluku’s Untold Stories

April 16, 2025.Reading time 24 minutes.

Editor’s note: This is the fifth post in our theme for April 2025, The City Aquatic. For additional entries in the series, see here. By Fendy Tulodo In the vast archipelago of Indonesia, Maluku stands as a region shaped by both its turbulent history and its deep connection to the sea. Once the epicenter of […]

Waterworld: How Water Engineering Became Imperial Japan’s Method of Building Cities

April 15, 2025.Reading time 23 minutes.

Editor’s note: This is the fourth post in our theme for April 2025, The City Aquatic. For additional entries in the series, see here. By Emi Higashiyama The story of Taiwan’s emergence into modernity can be difficult to interpret because it is a story that has been caught in the fierce rivalry between China and […]

Forgotten Urban Currents: The Role of Subterranean Rivers in Shaping Modern Cities

April 2, 2025.Reading time 26 minutes.

Editor’s note: This is the second post in our theme for April 2025, The City Aquatic. For additional entries in the series, see here. By AN In cities across the world, rivers once central to daily life now flow unseen beneath layers of concrete and asphalt. These subterranean rivers–natural waterways that have been buried, diverted, […]

Megalopolis and the 15-Minute City

February 12, 2025.Reading time 18 minutes.

Editor’s Note: This is the third post in our theme for February 2025 “Celluloid City” which explores the role of and interplay between cities and film. You can see all posts from the theme here. By Jannat Suleman Since the introduction of the theoretical 15-minute city, there’s been significant nitpicking at the so-called socialist concept […]

Building the Golden City: Rome in the Gladiator Films

February 5, 2025.Reading time 27 minutes.

Editor’s Note: This is the second post in The Metropole’s theme for February 2025 “Celluloid City” which explores the role of and interplay between cities and film. You can see all posts from the theme here. By Grace Gillies The Rome in both Gladiator films is a landscape of monumental architecture subtly but pervasively inflected […]

Introducing Celluloid City: Film and the Metropolis

February 4, 2025.Reading time 8 minutes.

Editor’s note: The theme for February 2025, “Celluloid City,” explores the interplay between cities and film. This overview kicks off the month with subsequent pieces by contributors to follow. You can see all posts from the theme here. Nearly five years ago, The Metropole spent the month of April 2020 thinking about “The Visual City.” […]

Diyarbakır: Contested City in Turkey’s Kurdish heartland

January 27, 2025.Reading time 38 minutes.

By William Gourlay If you present a map of Turkey to a traveler and ask them to pinpoint key cities, chances are they will immediately identify İstanbul, the great metropolis on the Bosphorus. Some would also be able to highlight Ankara, the capital, but beyond that choices may be limited. Few cities in Turkey’s Anatolian […]