Debates

Debates

Defunding Social Services

Brenden Beck - 15 July 2025

Cities around the United States are bracing for federal funding cuts to social services. Yet, as Brenden Beck...

Debates

The Myth of Urban Exodus from Paris: Mobility in Times of Health Crisis

Nadine Cattan & Olivier Telle & Céline Vacchiani-Marcuzzo & Joséphin Béraud & Ludovic Chalonge & translated by Oliver Waine - 2 May 2025

The rushed departures of city dwellers to the countryside ahead of the first Covid‑19 lockdown, in spring 2020,...

Debates

Can the Market Solve Los Angeles’ Housing and Homelessness Crisis?

Katherine Smock - 27 February 2025

Policymakers in Los Angeles hope that market-based solutions will solve the city’s housing crisis. Data from the...

Debates

The Banality of Innovation: Mythic Discourse and the Long Road to Shore Power in New York City

Iain McDavid - 3 December 2024

If the New York City Economic Development Corporation is committed to the city’s “green transformation, ” then why is...

Debates

Deconstructing Gentrification

Todd Swanstrom & Jason Hackworth - 5 November 2024

Can changing the way we understand the process of gentrification open possibilities for political and social change?...

Debates

Discrimination and Everyday Politicization in Working-Class Neighborhoods in France

Marion Carrel & translated by Oliver Waine - 8 October 2024

Drawing on a collective study, Marion Carrel highlights how experiences of discrimination structure people’s...

Debates

When Rising Expectations Meet Rising Reaction: New York’s 2024 Housing Policy Fight and the Prospects for the Future

Oksana Mironova & Samuel Stein - 10 September 2024

How did New York housing policy fare with Democratic control of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of...

Debates

The French Exception on the European Migration Scene

Speranta Dumitru & Ettore Recchi - 4 June 2024

The notion of mass migration to France is regularly mobilized in the country’s European election campaigns. Using...

Debates

Writing the Intellectual History of Bioregionalism

Antoine Dubiau & translated by Oliver Waine - 22 December 2023

As bioregionalist ideas spread in France, their history remains partly unwritten. This environmental movement, which...

Debates

“Urban Exodus” as an Extension of the Rentier Sector

Aurélie Delage & Max Rousseau & translated by Oliver Waine - 15 September 2023

In the French media, the increasingly recurrent topic of urban exodus has been portrayed as one of the consequences...

Debates

How the Gonesse Triangle Became a Zone to Defend

Stéphane Tonnelat & translated by Oliver Waine - 28 April 2023

Despite the cancellation in late 2019 of the EuropaCity project - a giant shopping mall and entertainment complex on...

Debates

Where are the Women Architects?

Collectif Architoo & translated by Oliver Waine - 31 March 2023

At the 2020 edition of the Albums des jeunes architectes et paysagistes (AJAP) competition, organized by the French...

Debates

Changes in Contemporary Brazilian Housing Policy: The Dismantling of Social Housing and Grassroots Mobilization

Thalles Vichiato Breda - 21 October 2022

Thalles Vichiato Breda argues that since 2016, with the rise of right-wing governments in Brazil, the federal...

Debates

The Slow Violence of Planned Obsolescence

Elise Mason - 20 September 2022

Elise Mason critiques planned obsolescence as a form of slow violence. She argues for an ethic of care, rooted in...

Debates

Depending on a Curse: What History Tells Us About Property-Tax Reform in New York City

Daniel Wortel-London - 12 July 2022

Daniel Wortel-London discusses New York’s discriminatory policies and taxes and asks: can a tax system as cumbersome...

Debates

The Second Coming of the Accessory Dwelling Unit

Joseph Weil Huennekens - 26 October 2021

Joseph Weil Huennekens discusses the history of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in the context of housing in the...

Debates

Reimagining Skill

Nichola Lowe - 12 October 2021

Nichola Lowe argues that skill needs to be reimagined, not erased from efforts to strengthen the institutional...

Debates

Aéroports de Paris: A Strategic Lever for the French State?

Nathalie Roseau & translated by Oliver Waine - 26 January 2021

Following growing controversy surrounding the French government’s plans to privatize the Aéroports de Paris (ADP)...

Debates

When Revolution Reinvents Public Space in Beirut

Ines Lakrouf & translated by Oliver Waine - 18 September 2020

In the fall of 2019, peaceful protesters in Lebanon were demanding an end to corruption and calling for a movement of...

Debates

Covid-19, War, and Working-Class Neighborhoods

Pierre Gilbert & translated by Oliver Waine - 5 June 2020

The residents of France’s working-class neighborhoods, accused of exacerbating the coronavirus pandemic through their...

Debates

Diverting Eyes and Bodies: The Management of Homeless Visibility in New York City

Eric Goldfischer - 19 November 2019

Eric Goldfischer argues that homeless diversion programs in New York City simultaneously divert the bodies of...

Debates

What Does a Just Housing Plan Look Like? NYC and National Housing Movements Show the Way

Oksana Mironova & Sylvia Morse - 22 October 2019

How could we develop a housing plan that is not rooted in capitalism? Oksana Mironova and Sylvia Morse describe how...

Debates

Can Cannabis Be Legalized in France Without Inflaming the Banlieues?

Christian Ben Lakhdar & Aymeric Reyre & translated by Oliver Waine - 5 July 2019

France is a place of paradoxes: cannabis is widely consumed, and yet legalization does not seem to be on the cards,...

Debates

Reclaim Value Capture for Equitable Urban Development

Laura Wolf-Powers - 28 May 2019

Land-value capture (LVC) mechanisms have become a popular tool for fiscally constrained municipal policymakers....

Debates

Post–Amazon HQ2 Incentive Reform: We can have good deals—but not without transparency and meaningful public participation

Mary Donegan - 21 May 2019

What does the collapse of New York City’s Amazon HQ2 deal mean for the future of economic development incentive...

Debates

Private Infrastructure and Urban Government: How Vélib’ Veered Off Course in Paris

Maxime Huré & translated by Oliver Waine - 17 May 2019

When the city of Paris entrusted its decade-old bike-share service, Vélib’, to a new provider in January 2018,...

Debates

The Limits of the Accepted Orthodoxy on Rent Control

Loïc Bonneval & François Robert & translated by Oliver Waine - 22 March 2019

In response to a recent critique of their work, Loïc Bonneval and François Robert defend their method and results. In...

Debates

Masculine Sports and “Respectable” Men in Working-Class Neighborhoods

Carine Guérandel & translated by Oliver Waine - 12 March 2019

In a work rich in ethnographic material, Akim Oualhaci questions how socialization through sports contributes to the...

Debates

Fixing the Accessibility Gap in Municipal Procurement

Emily Holloway & Nicholas Shatan - 5 March 2019

How can minority- and women-owned businesses overcome structural disadvantages to building wealth through...

Debates

The Damage Inflicted by French Rent Controls between 1914 and 1948

Robert C. Ellickson & David Le Bris - 26 February 2019

In an essay in Metropolitics, Loïc Bonneval questioned the consensus among economists that strict rent controls have...

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