Sevilla-Buitrago, Álvaro. Against the Commons: A Radical History of Urban Planning. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2022. Reviewed by Mohamed Gamal-Eldin and Marianne Dhenin Historian Álvaro Sevilla-Buitrago delivers a provocative account of how planning has shaped our world in his debut single-author monograph, Against the Commons: A Radical History of Urban Planning, recently released from […]
Editorial note: This post is part of our theme for March 2023, Science City, an exploration of the ways cities and science have interacted over time and around the world. By Likam Kyanzaire Benin City sits at the eastern end of Nigeria, not far from its commercial capital Lagos. The site is home to the […]
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. […]
Lizabeth Cohen, Saving America’s Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2019) Reviewed by Bob Carey Lizabeth Cohen has given us a big, tasty book about urban renewal and the career—successes and failures—of urban planner Ed Logue. Logue had, for many, the […]
By Efthymios-Spyridon Georgiou The modern history of Thessaloniki, a Mediterranean port city in northern Greece, began in the mid-nineteenth century. The Ottoman ruler at the time, Tanziman, was influenced by modernism and Western lifestyles. So while the Ottoman state remained anachronistic in administrative and military structures, Tanziman promoted the modernization of the city. The period […]
The Metropole Bookshelf is an opportunity for authors of forthcoming or recently published books to let the UHA community know about their new work in the field. Kara M. Schlichting. New York Recentered: Building the Metropolis from the Shore. University of Chicago Press, 2019. By Kara M. Schlichting New York Recentered offers a new model […]
Cityscape is The Metropole’s monthly shortcut to recent, forthcoming, or overlooked writing, exhibits and film. The City in Print The City in Arabic Literature: Classical and Modern Perspectives, edited by Nizar F. Hermes and Gretchen Head. Edinburgh University Press, 2018. Sixteen essays on Arabic poetry and prose which invite a literary exploration of Mosul, Cairo, […]
Stephanie Frank Assistant Professor of Urban Planning + Design University of Missouri-Kansas City @FranklyUrban Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? I am currently finishing up revisions to an article titled “Industrial Networks and Urban Development: Kansas City’s Film Row District and National Film Distribution” that will be published in the Spring […]
Today our Member of the Week series returns, with a twist. This summer, we brought nine new assistant editors onto our team at The Metropole. Some of them you already know as past Members of the Week: Troy Hallsell, Dylan Gottlieb, and Kenneth Alyass. The rest will be introduced in the coming weeks, but we […]
Dr. Rainer Schützeichel ETH Zurich, Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta) Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? Intellectual history alongside (and intertwined with) urban and architectural history has always caught my interest. At the moment, I am following this research interest firstly in a project that […]
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