Megalopolis and the 15-Minute City

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 […]

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Building the Golden City: Rome in the Gladiator Films

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 […]

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Introducing Celluloid City: Film and the Metropolis

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.” […]

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Diyarbakır: Contested City in Turkey’s Kurdish heartland

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 […]

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Aging Gang Members in Southern California – A Review of “The Marvelous Ones: Drugs, Gang Violence, and Resistance in East Los Angeles.”

Randol Contreras. The Marvelous Ones: Drugs, Gang Violence, and Resistance in East Los Angeles. Oakland: University of California Press, 2024. By Dianne Violeta Mausfeld East Los Angeles is an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County with a population that is over 95 percent Latino, overwhelmingly Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans. Mexican immigrants settled in this […]

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Call for Papers: Metropole Theme Months 2025

With 2024 just about in the rear view mirror, The Metropole’s editorial staff wanted to let our readers know that we have three theme months planned for the first half of 2025. Check out our calls below and drop us a line at  themetropole@urbanhistory.org if you have a pitch for us! The City and Film […]

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Congratulations to Our 2024 Graduate Student Blogging Contest Winner!

Once again, we had a record number of entries in our graduate student blogging contest! Our 2024 theme, “Connection,” inspired submission by twelve students whose work intersects with urban history. Online publications such as The Metropole can provide an outlet for writing that allows for creativity and experimentation, both in content and how information is […]

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Latinx Entrepreneurs in Philadelphia – A Legacy of Resilience and Growth

Editor’s note: This is the fourth post in our theme for November, The Latinx City. By Stephanie Rivera-Kumar Philadelphia, one of the oldest cities in the United States, has a vibrant history shaped by immigrant contributions that continue to affect its neighborhoods and economy. In recent years, Latinx immigrants from countries such as the Dominican […]

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Creature of the Night: A Review of “Midnight Rambles: H. P. Lovecraft in Gotham”

David J. Goodwin. Midnight Rambles: H. P. Lovecraft in Gotham. New York: Fordham University Press, 2023. Reviewed by Peter C. Baldwin The horror fiction of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, which sends delightful chills down the spines of his many fans, draws its power from its monsters and creepy settings, not from human characters. Lovecraft’s florid prose […]

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