New York
Neil Smith (1954–2012), a Scottish geographer based in New York, is the author who explained why gentrification happens.
On New York in this archive
- Urban history
Christine Boyer: How the City Turns Memory into a Tool of Power
M. Christine Boyer shows in The City of Collective Memory that heritage and urban images are selected and…
Battery Park City 3 min read - Urban ecology
Matthew Gandy: Urban Nature Reveals Power in the City
Matthew Gandy shows that water, waste, parks and expressways are nature produced by political decisions: urban…
Erik Swyngedouw 3 min read - Public space
Why Walking Makes Cities Livelier and Safer: Jan Gehl's Evidence
Walking is the basis of public life and safety. What Jan Gehl measured in Cities for People, his twelve quality…
Jane Jacobs 3 min read - Urban AI
Proximity Transforms: Edward Glaeser on Productive Cities
Edward Glaeser explains why concentrating people and firms makes cities more productive: agglomeration, human…
Michael Storper 3 min read - Housing
Natalie Jeremijenko: The City as a Participatory Ecology Lab
Natalie Jeremijenko's devices make pollution and urban biodiversity visible so citizens can investigate and act.…
New York 3 min read - Urban geopolitics
Rem Koolhaas: Manhattanism, Bigness and the Generic City
Rem Koolhaas explains what happens when the city grows faster than the planner's control: Manhattanism, Bigness,…
Rem Koolhaas 3 min read - Public space
Why Cities Should Not Be Identical Models: Jennifer Robinson
Jennifer Robinson argues in Ordinary Cities that every city can produce theory and that judging them by the…
AbdouMaliq Simone 3 min read - Urban geopolitics
Why Cities Are the Key Nodes of Globalization: Saskia Sassen
Saskia Sassen explains why a dispersed economy needs global cities to coordinate it: command functions, social…
Jennifer Robinson 3 min read - Public space
Richard Sennett's Open City: Open or Close the Public Space?
Richard Sennett defends the open city, designed for encounters with strangers, against closed enclosures. Ville and…
Richard Sennett 3 min read - Housing
Sharon Zukin: How Culture Turns a Neighbourhood into a Product
Sharon Zukin explains how the symbolic economy raises a neighbourhood's value before prices rise: the sequence of…
Sharon Zukin 3 min read - Mobility
The Bike Improves Your Health and Enhances Your Neighbourhood
Cycling cuts mortality risk, frees street space, lowers noise and pollution and keeps local shops alive.
Jan Gehl 3 min read - Urban economy
Who Pays When a Mega-Project Fails? Public Risk and Private Gain
Mega-projects are built on public decisions and public money, yet gains go private and losses stay public.
Bent Flyvbjerg 3 min read - Mobility
Your Free Parking Costs Way More Than You Think: Shoup's Numbers
A supermarket lot could hold a hundred homes: Donald Shoup's high cost of free parking, minimums copied from…
Donald Shoup 3 min read - Housing
How Airbnb Changes the City: Rising Rents and Vanishing Neighbours
Airbnb raises rents, replaces local shops and dissolves neighbourhood ties. What the studies show and how…
New York 3 min read - Housing
Art Washing: Murals, Investment and Displacement in Cities
Art washing uses murals, galleries and festivals to prepare working-class neighbourhoods for investment.
Sharon Zukin 3 min read - Public space
Who Controls Your City's Public Spaces? Private Plazas
Privately owned public spaces look like squares but carry private rules. From New York's 1961 zoning to Occupy,…
Richard Sennett 3 min read - Urban ecology
Green Gentrification: When Parks and Trees Push Residents Out
Green gentrification is the paradox of the sustainable city: the park that a neighbourhood fought for raises rents…
New York 3 min read - Urban form
Rem Koolhaas: Delirious New York and the Culture of Congestion
Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas's retroactive manifesto: the culture of congestion, Rockefeller Center as a city…
Rem Koolhaas 2 min read - Urban geopolitics
Michael Peter Smith: Transnational Urbanism and Global Cities
Michael Peter Smith argues in Transnational Urbanism that globalisation is made by migrants and networks in…
Michael Peter Smith 2 min read - Surveillance / data
Stephen Graham: Militarisation and Surveillance in the City
Stephen Graham describes in Cities Under Siege the new military urbanism: how techniques of war, surveillance and…
Stephen Graham 2 min read - Climate change
Urban Resilience: How Cities Recover After Disaster
The Resilient City (2005) by Vale and Campanella explains how Chicago, Warsaw, Hiroshima or New York rebuilt after…
Thomas Campanella 3 min read - Climate change
Vale and Campanella: Who Returns to the City After Disaster
The Resilient City by Lawrence Vale and Thomas Campanella shows that cities almost always rebuild, but resilience…
Thomas Campanella 3 min read - Urban history
Peter Hall's Cities of Tomorrow: A History of Urban Planning
Cities of Tomorrow (1988) by Peter Hall traces the twentieth century's planning ideas, from Howard to Le Corbusier,…
Ebenezer Howard 2 min read - Urban economy
Nik Theodore: Neoliberal Urbanism, Informal Work and Migrants
Nik Theodore explains how neoliberal urbanism produces precarity, what his studies of day labourers and migrants in…
Neil Brenner 2 min read - Urban geopolitics
Global Cities According to Saskia Sassen: Power and Inequality
Cities in a World Economy (1994) by Saskia Sassen explains why the global economy is run from a few cities and what…
Saskia Sassen 3 min read - Urban economy
Peter Marcuse: Social Justice and Urbanism Against Neoliberalism
Peter Marcuse explained how neoliberalism put planning at the service of capital and what a just city requires.…
Herbert Marcuse 2 min read - Urban economy
Jamie Peck: Constructions of Neoliberal Reason and the City
Jamie Peck's Constructions of Neoliberal Reason explains neoliberalism as a process that finds its laboratory in…
Richard Florida 2 min read - Housing
Martha Rosler: art against gentrification
How Martha Rosler uses art to critique gentrification and urban capitalism: from If You Lived Here… to the city…
New York 2 min read - Public space
Setha Low: Spatial Justice and the Right to Public Space
Setha Low studies what makes a public space just or exclusionary. Her ethnographies of plazas, parks and gated…
Setha Low 3 min read - Urban history
Christine Boyer: Collective Memory and Urban Planning
The City of Collective Memory (1994) by Christine Boyer explains how the city stores memory and how regeneration…
Christine Boyer 3 min read - Housing
Sonia Hirt and Zoning: The Roots of Urban Inequality in the USA
Zoned in the USA (2014) by Sonia Hirt shows that the exclusive single-family zone, unique in the world, raises…
Los Angeles 3 min read - Urban geopolitics
Johannesburg: The Elusive Metropolis by Mbembe and Nuttall
Achille Mbembe and Sarah Nuttall read Johannesburg as a modern African metropolis rather than an exception. The…
AbdouMaliq Simone 3 min read - Urban geopolitics
Manuel Castells: the space of flows
What Manuel Castells means by the space of flows: how networks of information and capital reorganise global cities,…
Manuel Castells 2 min read - Urban geopolitics
Shanghai as a Global City: From the Concessions to Pudong
Shanghai went from an open port in 1843 to a cosmopolitan metropolis and, after 1990, to a state-directed global…
Saskia Sassen 3 min read - Urban history
Robert Caro and Robert Moses: The Legacy of The Power Broker
The Power Broker, by Robert Caro, tells how Robert Moses transformed New York without ever being elected: parks,…
Robert Moses 3 min read - Urban economy
Critical Urban Studies by Davies and Imbroscio: Social Justice
Critical Urban Studies (2010), edited by Jonathan Davies and David Imbroscio, revisits urban studies from social…
Susan Fainstein 2 min read - Urban geopolitics
Saskia Sassen: what makes a global city global
New York, London and Tokyo concentrate capital, information and decisions. Saskia Sassen explains what links them…
Saskia Sassen 2 min read - Public space
Sharon Sutton: Social Inclusion and Participation in Urban Planning
Sharon Sutton, a pioneering African American architect, argues for designing with marginalised communities and…
African American 3 min read - Mobility
Enrique Peñalosa and the Transformation of Bogotá (1998-2000)
Enrique Peñalosa transformed Bogotá between 1998 and 2000 with TransMilenio, cycle paths, pavements and libraries…
New York 3 min read - Housing
Naked City by Sharon Zukin: Gentrification and Urban Authenticity
Naked City (2010) by Sharon Zukin shows how the search for authenticity gentrifies New York's neighbourhoods.
Robert Moses 2 min read - Public space
Susan Fainstein's Just City: Equity, Diversity and Democracy
The Just City (2010) by Susan Fainstein proposes judging urban policy by its equity, diversity and democracy.
Susan Fainstein 3 min read - Public space
Richard Sennett and the Decline of Public Life
In The Fall of Public Man (1977) Richard Sennett explains how the tyranny of intimacy emptied public space. Key…
Richard Sennett 3 min read - Housing
Neil Smith and Gentrification: Rent Gap and the Revanchist City
Neil Smith explained why gentrification happens: the rent gap that draws capital and the revanchist city that…
Loretta Lees 2 min read - Urban economy
Sharon Zukin: Cultural Capital and Urban Transformation
A city's cultural capital draws investment and tourism, but it also gentrifies. What Sharon Zukin explains in The…
Sharon Zukin 2 min read - Public space
Urban Territoriality: Inclusion and Exclusion (Low and Delaney)
Urban territoriality explains how groups and institutions mark and control city space. What Setha Low and David…
Teresa Caldeira 3 min read - Urban psychology
Urban Design and Mental Health: Lessons from Whyte and Gehl
Urban mental health depends on how streets, plazas and parks are designed. What William H. Whyte and Jan Gehl…
Jan Gehl 2 min read - Shrinking cities
Deindustrialization and Urban Reuse: Lofts, Rent Gap and Culture
Reusing industrial land turns factories and docks into housing, culture and parks. What Sharon Zukin and Neil Smith…
Battery Park City 2 min read - Urban ecology
Jennifer Wolch: Environmental Justice and Green Planning
Jennifer Wolch measured park poverty in Los Angeles and formulated the urban green paradox: the park that corrects…
Michael Dear 2 min read - Urban geopolitics
Saskia Sassen: migration, inequality and the global city
How Saskia Sassen explains the global city: financial concentration, international migration, urban inequality and…
Saskia Sassen 2 min read - Public space
Tactical urbanism: testing the city before building it
Tactical urbanism tests plazas, bike lanes and pop-up gardens to find out what works on the street before it is…
Anthony Garcia 2 min read - Public space
Dolores Hayden and Feminist Urbanism: The Grand Domestic Revolution
Dolores Hayden showed that housing and cities were designed as if care work did not exist. What The Grand Domestic…
Dolores Hayden 2 min read - Public space
Jane Jacobs: the street as the engine of the city
Jane Jacobs showed in 1961 that mixed uses, density and active streets keep a neighbourhood safe better than any…
Robert Moses 2 min read - Urban geopolitics
The Endless City by Burdett and Sudjic: The Global City Compared
The Endless City (2007) by Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic compares with maps and data New York, Shanghai, London,…
Jennifer Robinson 3 min read - Shrinking cities
Post-Industrial Regeneration: Guggenheim Effect, Culture and Exclusion
Post-industrial regeneration bet on culture and tourism after the factories, from Bilbao to Glasgow.
Sharon Zukin 3 min read - Urban geopolitics
Peripheral Global Cities: Subordinate Integration and Exclusion
How the cities of the Global South are inserted into the world economy in a subordinate way: Grant and Nijman's…
Jennifer Robinson 3 min read - Mobility
Shared Mobility in Cities: What Works According to Shaheen and Cervero
Shared mobility cuts cars only if the city governs it. What Susan Shaheen and Robert Cervero measure about car…
New York 3 min read - Urban economy
Touristification: Zukin, Sassen and the city for tourists
What touristification is and how Sharon Zukin (Naked City) and Saskia Sassen explain it: authenticity turned into a…
Saskia Sassen 2 min read - Urban AI
Platform Urbanism: How Uber, Airbnb and Deliveroo Change the City
Platform urbanism explains how Uber, Airbnb and Deliveroo reorganise transport, housing, retail and work.
Nick Srnicek 2 min read - Urban geopolitics
The Production of Space in the Global South: Robinson and Pieterse
The production of space in the Global South needs its own categories. What Jennifer Robinson (Ordinary Cities). The…
AbdouMaliq Simone 2 min read - Public space
Spatial justice: what it is, after Soja and Fainstein
What spatial justice is and how Edward Soja (Seeking Spatial Justice) and Susan Fainstein (The Just City)…
Susan Fainstein 2 min read - Housing
Gentrification and Displacement: Smith, Lees and Slater
Gentrification raises neighbourhood values and displacement pushes residents out. What Neil Smith, Loretta Lees and…
Peter Marcuse 3 min read - Urban economy
Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser: Why Density Matters
Triumph of the City (2011) by Edward Glaeser argues that the dense city makes us richer, greener and healthier.
Richard Florida 3 min read - Urban geopolitics
Socio-Spatial Segregation: Wacquant, Massey and Sassen
Socio-spatial segregation sorts rich and poor into separate neighborhoods. How Loïc Wacquant, Douglas Massey and…
African American 2 min read - Urban economy
Richard Florida's The New Urban Crisis: Inequality in Cities
The New Urban Crisis (2017) by Richard Florida explains why the most prosperous cities push out the people who…
Richard Florida 2 min read - Urban form
The 15-Minute City: What It Is, How It Works and Its Critics
Carlos Moreno's 15-minute city brings housing, work, services and leisure within a quarter of an hour on foot.
Carlos Moreno 3 min read - Housing
Ruth Glass and Gentrification: London, Aspects of Change
Ruth Glass coined gentrification in 1964 to describe middle-class newcomers displacing Islington's working class.…
Loretta Lees 2 min read - Urban economy
Ann Markusen: Creative Economy, Artists and Urban Development
Ann Markusen measured what artists contribute to the urban economy, defined creative placemaking and criticised…
Richard Florida 3 min read - Housing
Social Housing and Rent Regulation: What Works and Why
Social housing and rent regulation are the keys to urban affordability. What Raquel Rolnik and Peter Marcuse…
Raquel Rolnik 3 min read - Shrinking cities
Reusing Abandoned Spaces: Opportunities and Risks
Reusing abandoned factories, stations and lots preserves heritage and central land, but it can gentrify.
Sharon Zukin 3 min read - Climate change
Extreme Cities by Ashley Dawson: Cities, Climate and Inequality
Extreme Cities (2017) by Ashley Dawson explains why coastal cities are climate change's first victim and how…
Ashley Dawson 2 min read - Mobility
Urban Congestion: Strategies That Work According to Downs and Jones
Urban congestion is not solved by adding lanes. What Anthony Downs and Peter Jones explain, what congestion pricing…
Anthony Downs 2 min read - Urban economy
Innovation and Urban Development: Porter, Florida and Markusen
Innovation as the engine of urban development according to Michael Porter, Richard Florida and Ann Markusen:…
Richard Florida 3 min read - Urban economy
Platform Economy and Urban Work: Precarity and Regulation
The platform economy turned couriers and drivers into self-employed workers managed by algorithms. What Nick…
Nick Srnicek 3 min read - Urban form
The Horizontal City and Suburbanisation: Fishman and Hall on Sprawl
The horizontal city grows outward with low density, cars and highways. How Robert Fishman and Peter Hall explain…
Robert Moses 3 min read - Urban economy
Creative Urbanism: From Landry and Florida to Their Critics
Creative urbanism uses culture and art to regenerate cities. What Charles Landry and Richard Florida propose, what…
Richard Florida 3 min read - Public space
Inclusive Public Space: Sennett and Low on Participatory Cities
Inclusive public space is the infrastructure of urban democracy. What Richard Sennett and Setha Low explain, two…
Richard Sennett 3 min read - Urban geopolitics
Jennifer Robinson and Ordinary Cities: Urban Theory from the South
Ordinary Cities (2006) by Jennifer Robinson holds that all cities are ordinary and sources of theory. Her critique…
AbdouMaliq Simone 3 min read - Urban geopolitics
Saskia Sassen: Cities in a World Economy
A summary of Saskia Sassen's Cities in a World Economy: why a handful of cities concentrate command over the global…
Saskia Sassen 2 min read - Urban psychology
Post-Pandemic Cities: How COVID-19 Redefined Urban Space
Post-pandemic cities accelerated tactical urbanism, remote work and awareness of health inequality.
Carlos Moreno 2 min read - Housing
The Impact of Airbnb on Neighbourhoods: Rents and Everyday Life
How short-term rental raises rents, replaces local shops with souvenir stores and breaks neighbourhood life, and…
New York 3 min read
