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A worker entering the U.S. Steel Clairton Works in Clairton, Pennsylvania.

A Rust Belt City’s New Working Class

Heavy industry once drove Pittsburgh’s economy. Now health care does—but without the same hard-won benefits.
President Biden in a warehouse
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Government Has Always Picked Winners and Losers

A welfare state doesn't distort the market; it just makes government aid fairer.
Activist Donivan Brown on the Walnut Street Bridge.

The Lynching That Black Chattanooga Never Forgot Takes Center Stage Downtown

The city will memorialize part of its darkest history at the refurnished Walnut Street Bridge.
Cleo Davis and Kayin Talton Davis are artists and activists who have made it their mission to preserve and celebrate African American history in Portland. Here, their daughter, Ifetayo Davis, stands with her father and sisters outside their home.

Oregon Once Legally Banned Black People. Has the State Reconciled its Racist Past?

Oregon became ground zero of America’s racial reckoning protests last summer. But activists say it doesn’t know its own history.
Elizabeth Catte and her book

'Pure America': Eugenics Past and Present

Historian Elizabeth Catte traces the history and influence of eugenics from her backyard across the country.
St. Louis arch

The Arch of Injustice

St. Louis seems to define America’s past—but does it offer insight for the future?
Skyscrapers in a city.

The Pandemic Disproved Urban Progressives’ Theory About Gentrification

The “gentrification-industrial complex” isn’t who anti-growth progressives think it is.
A large sports stadium surrounded by the city

Counterhistories of the Sport Stadium

As large spaces where different sectors of the city converge, stadiums are sites of social and political struggle.

The Civil Rights Era was Supposed to Drastically Change America. It Didn’t.

From covid-19 to the 2020 election, the specter of America’s racist history influences many aspects of our lives.
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The Lines That Shape Our Cities

Connecting present-day environmental inequalities to redlining policies of the 1930s.

The Depression-Era Book That Wanted to Cancel the Rent

“Modern Housing,” by Catherine Bauer, argued—as many activists do today—that a decent home should be seen as a public utility and a basic right.
From left, actors Bernnadette Stanis, John Amos and Ja'Net Dubois accept the Impact Award for “Good Times” at the 2006 TV Land Awards in Santa Monica, Calif. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
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Television Is Already Moving to Address Racism — But Will the Effort Last?

Past network efforts to address racism faded as uprisings stopped dominating headlines.
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The Police Chief Who Inspired Trump’s Tweet Glorifying Violence

Trump echoed a former Miami police chief’s anti-black words and animus.

Racism After Redlining

In "Race for Profit," Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor walks us through the ways racist housing policy survived the abolition of redlining.

When Memphis Fell for a Pyramid Scheme

The Great American Pyramid was supposed to give the Tennessee city an architectural landmark for the ages. Instead, it got a very large sporting goods store.
Political cartoon of people reaching toward a woman symbolizing Milwaukee who herself is reaching toward socialism.

When Socialists Swept Milwaukee

Democratic socialists attending the 2020 Democratic Convention won’t be out of place in a city with a long history of socialist governance.
853 map of San Francisco by the U. S. Coast Survey

Demolishing the California Dream: How San Francisco Planned Its Own Housing Crisis

Today's housing crisis in San Francisco originates from zoning laws that segregated racial groups and income levels.
A mother pushes a child, on a swing at the Cabrini-Green public housing project in Chicago, May 28, 1981.

The 1992 Horror Film That Made a Monster Out of a Chicago Housing Project

In Candyman, the notorious Cabrini-Green complex is haunted by urban myths and racial paranoia.
Photograph of murder victim by Weegee.

The Lost World of Weegee

Depression-era Americans viewed urban life in America through the lens of Weegee’s camera.
Map of New York City.

Here Grows New York City

An animation of the historical trends of New York's growth since its founding.
View of San Francisco from the Bay.

How Could 'The Most Successful Place on Earth' Get So Much Wrong?

A new book conjures the complexity of the Bay Area and the perils of its immense, uneven wealth.

Black Wall Street: The African American Haven That Burned and Then Rose From the Ashes

The story of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Greenwood district isn’t well known, but it has never been told in a manner worthy of its importance.

Bias Training at Starbucks Is a Reminder That the History of Racism Is About Who Belongs Where

A central component of the history of racism is the intersection in which geography and race collide.

Coming to Terms With Nature

Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters in the ’60s.

A New Kind Of City Tour Shows The History Of Racist Housing Policy

Redlining tours explain how policies designed to keep minorities out of certain areas shaped the urban landscapes we see today.

Who Segregated America?

For all of its strengths, Richard Rothstein’s new book does not account for the central role capitalism played in segregating America's cities.
Obama standing with his official presidential portrait.

There Goes the Neighborhood

The Obama library lands on Chicago.

Present Tense, Future Perfect: Protest and Progress at the 1964 World's Fair

The stall-in threatened to interrupt a certain imaginary of progress, democracy, and freedom with the reality of racial injustice.

Emperor of Concrete

A 1974 review of Robert Caro's "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York."

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