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Photo collage of L.J. Davis, Jervis Anderson, and a street map

The Invention of a Neighborhood

In the early years of Brooklyn’s gentrification, a 1977 New Yorker piece by Jervis Anderson captured the process in a freeze-frame.
Adam Smith (left), George Stigler (center), Milton Friedman (right), Hyde Park streetscape in the background.

The Localist

Why did Chicago become the headquarters of free market fundamentalism? Adam Smith offers a clue.
The image of the forlorn girl on the outskirts of the Highway to Nowhere was shot by John Van Horn in the fall of 1968

Road to Ruin

In the late 1960s, Baltimore began demolishing Black neighborhoods to make room for an ill-fated expressway. Will the harm from the Highway to Nowhere ever be repaired?
Mural of Roberto Clemente on the side of the museum dedicated to him.

Erased and Forgotten Sports History In Pittsburgh’s Crossroads of the World

The brothers from Barbados who built Negro League stadiums, and community efforts to create historic markers for them.
Two youths in Uptown Chicago, 1974.

When Uptown Chicago was “Hillbilly Heaven”

In the 1960s, white Appalachian workers attempted to put down roots in Chicago by building an integrated model neighborhood called Hank Williams Village.
Mexican American men standing near a mural and a low rider car in Chicago in 1987.

The Past and Future of Mexican Chicago

From the machine politicians in La Villita to the radicals in Pilsen, Mexican Chicagoans have played a central role in defining their city. 
Black and white photo of Pruitt-Igoe buildings being destroyed.

Pruitt-Igoe: A Black Community Under the "Atomic Cloud"

In the 1950s, the U.S. military conducted unethical radiological experiments on Black communities, including the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex.
People talking about a neighborhood map, from the cover of Claire Dunning's book "Nonprofit Neighborhoods."

Grantmaking as Governance

A new book examines how the US government funded the growth of — and delegated governance to — the nonprofit sector.
A crowd watches a roller skater dance at block party in the Bronx.

The Stories of the Bronx

"Urban Legends: The South Bronx in Representation and Ruin" is a vibrant cultural history that looks beyond pervasive narratives of cultural renaissance and urban neglect.
Albert Turner and Bob Mants are walking directly behind Williams and Lewis across Edmund Pettus Bridge
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Biden’s Push for an Infrastructure Presidency Risks Sacrificing Black Communities

Infrastructure has a long history of cloaking racism and preventing justice.
Anita Villarreal with a campaigning Richard J. Daley

The US Arrested Her—Then She Changed Chicago

In the 1960s, Chicago’s white neighborhoods didn’t want Mexican Americans moving in. But one determined real estate broker changed everything.
Map and photo of Seneca Village

Let’s Talk About the Taking of Black Land

From Seneca Village to “urban renewal,” the government has claimed Black property—rarely with the “just compensation” promised by the Fifth Amendment.
Cover of "Making Mexican Chicago", featuring a photo of a protest march.

"Making Mexican Chicago"

How the Windy City became a Latinx metropolis in the second half of the twentieth century.
Aerial photograph of San Francisco, 1906.

How Private Capital Strangled Our Cities

By following the money, a new history of urban inequality turns our attention away from federal malfeasance and toward capital markets and financial instruments.
Dancers in West Side Story jumping on stage

Why West Side Story Leaves Out African Americans

The new film is set in a now-bulldozed Black neighborhood, so why is it all about whites and Puerto Ricans? Because it really takes place in Los Angeles.
Futuristic representation of housing in Oakland

Untimely Futures

In Oakland, California, when it comes to Black homelessness and dispossession, dystopia is already here.
Pennsylvania Avenue

A City-State for The Nation

The fallout of the January 6th riot and its effect on D.C. statehood.
Highway being built in Louisiana

What It Looks Like to Reconnect Black Communities Torn Apart by Highways

Take any major American city and you’re likely to find a historically Black neighborhood demolished, or cut off from the rest of the city by a highway.
Police at the University of California at Berkeley guard the campus building where then-Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos was to speak on Feb. 1, 2017.
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The Racist Roots of Campus Policing

Campus police forces developed as part of an effort to wall off universities from Black neighborhoods.

The Neighborhood Fighting Not to Be Forgotten

One hundred years after the Tulsa Race Massacre, community members still can’t get the federal government to recognize Greenwood’s significance.
The Moshassuck River running under a bridge with graffiti.

Difficult Topographies

There are whole hidden worlds pressing into this one.
An aerial view of an interstate.

The Interstates: Planned Violence And The Need For Truth And Reconciliation

It is time to reckon with America’s racist legacy of Interstate Highway planning and engineering.
Aerial view of the University of Chicago
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Higher Education’s Racial Reckoning Reaches Far Beyond Slavery

Universities helped buttress a racist caste system well into the 20th century.
A highway sign on Route 1 points the way to Soul City.

The Lost Plan for a Black Utopian Town

Soul City in North Carolina was designed to build Black wealth and address racial injustice. Then its opponents lined up.
A picture of Boston being modernized through urban development, construction is happening on several buildings.

How Did American Cities Become So Unequal?

A new history of Ed Logue and his vision of urban renewal documents the broken promises of midcentury liberalism.

The Long Reinvention of the South Bronx

Peter L'Official on the Mythologies Behind Urban Renewal.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks during coronavirus briefing
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Cities and States Need Aid — But Also Oversight

Federal funding during and after the New Deal ended up hurting cities because of who spent it and how.

Jane Jacobs vs. The Power Brokers

How the patron saint of progressive urban planning’s ideas and ideals were implemented – and corrupted.
Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia
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How the Rise of Urban Nonprofits Has Exacerbated Poverty

While "meds and eds" have powered urban economies, they haven't been the gateway out of poverty that many hoped.

Privatizing the Public City

Oakland’s lopsided boom.

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