urban history

What "Crackhead" Really Meant in 1980s America

by Donovan X. Ramsey

The memories of politicians and police have been allowed to dominate our understanding of the emergence of crack cocaine in the 1980s. A new book seeks to elevate the voices of urban Black Americans and others who experienced it directly and still live with its effects.

Review: J.T. Roane Tells Black Philadelphia's History from the Margins

by Charles W. McKinney

Roane picks up a challenge offered by W.E.B. DuBois in his pioneering "The Philadelphia Negro" to understand the spaces of alternative and underground social life as important and formative parts of Black urban life in the Great Migration. 

J.T. Roane Reconstructs the Historical Spaces of Black Philadelphia

Roane examines the ways that Black Philadelphians between the Great Migration and the Black Power era created and used "underground" and spiritual spaces to stake claims to life in the city, and asks what places can fill that role today. 

The Biden Administration Wants to Undo the Damage of Urban Highways. It Won't be Simple

In cities across the nation, highway projects blighted working class communities, especially nonwhite ones. Is it possible for new policies to heal that damage? 

Discovery: Vast Network of Connected Mayan Cities in Guatemala

The discovery, using LIDAR technology, of more than 400 settlements connected by more than 100 miles of highways suggests that the Mayan civilization was even more developed than previously believed. The discovery also raises major issues of preservation and public access to the site. 

Brandon Johnson's Unlikely Leap from Labor Activist to Mayor

by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

The victory of the former teachers' union member over Paul Vallas, a career school privatizer with backing from Republicans and the police union, shows a widening rift between the centrist and left wings of the Democratic Party that is as important as the national blue-red division. 

To Understand America's Failure on Housing Desegregation, Look at the Capital City

by Kaila Philo

With federal support, the private housing market was built around racial segregation. To understand how federal fair housing law and policy adopted since the 1960s failed to undermine it, it's not necessary to venture too far from Capitol Hill. 

Black San Franciscans Have Been Leaving—Could Reparations Bring them Back?

A city commission has issued non-binding advisory recommendations for extensive cash reparations to Black residents and their families who were pushed out of now-valuable property through urban renewal. It's not likely that the local government will implement any of them, so activists are trying to help make housing more affordable.

Fred Siegel, Urban Historian and Liberal Turned Law-and-Order Conservative, Dies at 78

Siegel's work lamented what he saw as the failure of liberal regimes to safeguard urban quality of life and lambasted the indulgence of rioting. Those views led him to support Rudolph Giuliani's mayoral administration and remain relevant to discussions of social disorder in cities today. 

Brandon Johnson Built a Coalition to Win in Chicago. Can He Keep it to Govern?

by Gordon K. Mantler

When Brandon Johnson takes office on Monday as Chicago's mayor, he will experience the same challenge that his political predecessor Harold Washington did in 1983: turning a winning electoral coalition into a durable governing coalition. It won't be easy, but progressive change in the city depends on it. 

Why a Long-Maligned Housing Style Endures in Leeds

Once a progressive improvement on court-style housing in working class neighborhoods, then disfavored as cramped and lacking in privacy, urbanists look to Leeds's back-to-back rowhouses as a guide to more efficient and affordable housing for modern cities. 

Atlanta Outsources Collecting Tax Liens to Private Investors; Black Taxpayers are Losing their Homes

By outsourcing collection of delinquent taxes to private investors, Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, takes away incentives to keep people in their homes. Housing scholar Dan Immergluck says allowing private speculators to auction off properties is driving unaffordable housing and gentrification

The Police Aren't Part of Change in Chicago

by Dan Berger

A historian critiquing a recent book on Black Lives Matter argues that the political, fiscal and cultural influence of police is so broad that it's impossible to think of meaningful social reform in a society that includes modern police departments. 

Protests of Atlanta "Cop City" Show the Politics of the City's Elite Put the People Last

by Micah Herskind

A massive training facility for police to practice urban warfare reveals the decades-long abandonment of poorer Atlantans and the efforts of local business elites to use redevelopment and policing to cater to the wealthy and control the poor, as historians Dan Immergluck and Maurice Hobson help to explain. 

Who's Really to Blame for America's Lousy Transit Systems?

Historian Nicholas Dagen Bloom says that American politicians, especially at the municipal level, made a series of choices that diverted resources from mass transit to auto transportation. Neither racism nor the market nor secret conspiracies by industry made these choices inevitable.

Black Mothers Bet on Themselves and Changed Las Vegas—Can Their Ideas Still Change America?

by Annelise Orleck

A courageous and politically imaginative group of women challenged the most powerful interests in Las Vegas to win better public aid and build an organization for community service and empowerment. A historian explains who they were, how she came to tell their story, and what it means today.

Annelise Orleck on "Storming Caesar's Palace" and the Lessons of the Welfare Rights Movement

by Michan Connor

A leading historian of poor people's activism joins HNN for a discussion of the new edition of her acclaimed book on the Las Vegas Welfare Rights movement, which is the basis for a documentary now streaming on PBS. 

Claiming a Latino Place in Chicago

by Mike Amezcua

Like their African American contemporaries, ethnic Mexicans in Chicago have a long history of organizing to overturn residential segregation. 

After April 4: The 1968 Rebellions and the Unfinished Work of Civil Rights in DC

by Kyla Sommers

As Congressional controversy over DC's criminal law reforms shows, there remains significant unfinished business in the longstanding quest of DC residents to govern their city on their own terms. 

How Paris Kicked out the Cars

Planners and politicians used post-WWII prosperity to remake Paris for cars, making it one of the most car-saturated big cities. Recent changes led by Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo have show what can happen when priority is given to air quality and public space (though not every Parisian agrees).