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This paper retraces the history of Italy's first-generation rent control—a strict system of nominal rent freezes—from its adoption in 1915 to its final dismantling in 1978. It investigates the political and economic reasons why this policy was adopted, removed, intensified, or lightened at different times. In addition, this paper reports data on the evolution of rents in various Italian cities over the period considered, drawing them partly from published statistical sources and partly from archival research. In particular, it presents original data on controlled and uncontrolled rents in nineteen Italian cities between 1953 and 1975 (with gaps), taken from the Istat historical archive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper seeks to look into the role played by the rulers and the merchant class in the emergence of exchange centers (or market centers) in Western India, particularly Rajasthan and Gujarat, during the early medieval period. The paper tries to examine the combined efforts made by both the ruling class and private individuals in the agrarian expansion, which in turn encouraged exchange (trade and commerce) and ultimately paved way for the rise of different exchange centers in different parts of Western India. The focus is on the rising agricultural productivity, commercial transactions, and initiatives by rulers and merchants, which together provided suitable climate for the emergence of exchange centers. Rulers being aware of the revenue-generating potential of commerce themselves encouraged trade by establishing markets. Not only rulers but the merchants too helped in the growth of trade and commerce during the period of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the unique spatial arrangement of the capital (Nanjing) and imperial mausoleum (Xiaoling) in fourteenth-century China. According to Confucian principles and traditional practices, the location of tombs should be separated from the space of the living for philosophical and emotional reasons. However, this convention was challenged by the Hongwu emperor (1368–1398), founder of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), who built his own imperial mausoleum, Xiaoling, within the confines of the capital, an unprecedented act. According to primary sources—ritual texts, gazettes, tour books, and poetry—this innovative capital–mausoleum plan suggests an extension of the pattern by which the Hongwu emperor honored his ancestors through spatial arrangements and incorporated the imperial ancestors into dynasty-building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to discuss the problem of describing an urban plot and to propose a definition that can be used in comparative studies of historic towns. The need for a uniform definition results from comparative research using spatial databases and historical GIS (hGIS). The article discusses the problems in vectorization of plots for the purposes of hGIS analyses, as well as the methods of presenting urban plots on historical plans that have been used so far, on the example of the Historic Towns Atlas series. We compared the results of the analysis with the plot definitions appearing in the literature on urban studies. Based on the literature review and research discussed in the article, we developed and proposed a plot definition for the ontology of historical urban spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chicago, the "city of neighborhoods," was a center for 1970s community activism. This article uncovers the history of Northwestern University's Center for Urban Affairs (CUA), which worked behind the scenes to create networks—and supply research—that helped Chicago community organizations be so effective. Their work was directed by two veterans of the civil rights movement, John McKnight and Stanley Hallett. Both were committed to "liberating data" and sharing it with community organizations, who used it to remake institutions so that they served rather than exploited surrounding areas. CUA students and faculty pursued research questions raised by community organizations while questioning existing institutional arrangements. CUA activities cast new light on 1970s neighborhood activism in Chicago, which produced innovations in credit, housing, health, municipal resource allocation, and more. Their approach remains critical today, as urban universities again seek models for nonexploitative, mutually beneficial relationships with surrounding communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the age of socio-ecological crises in which we live, the urgency of understanding the complicated relationship between society and nature is apparent. To achieve this, unfolding the urban metabolism of cities through metabolic flows from the perspective of urban political ecology will grow increasingly essential in the future. This paper aims to explore the concept of urban political ecology as a perspective for understanding emergence of a new urban metabolism in İstanbul in the nineteenth century through metabolic flows of water. The context of "metabolic" emphasizes labor as an agent for the very production of nature as urbanized nature through tap water, waste, and sanitation. It shows the transition and the conflict between the labor-intensive urban metabolism and capital-intensive urban metabolism of İstanbul, which started in the nineteenth century. The metabolic flows of water in terms of infrastructure were affected by the first impacts of foreign capital investments and capitalist relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surrounding the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, government chemist Harvey Washington Wiley and the Bureau of Chemistry at the Department of Agriculture conducted experiments in Washington, D.C., on food adulteration. Contributing to new urban histories of science and focusing on how Wiley saw adulteration as an urban conundrum, this article shows how D.C.'s longstanding status as a "model city" allowed Wiley and the Bureau to use the city, somewhat paradoxically, as both a laboratory for studying toxic urbanity and as a representation of a healthy urban ideal. As D.C.'s population grew dramatically at the turn of the century, Wiley's science mirrored the unease he associated with urban growth, deception, and food adulteration. Wiley promoted an ethic of authenticity as part of an antimodernist or nostalgic modernist science that sought to quell the epidemic of deception that ravaged food production, science, and the American city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the case of the bookstore Librería Colombiana and the broad investment portfolio of their owners—the partnership Camacho Roldán & Tamayo—to show how networks of commodity exchange shaped Bogotá's space during the late nineteenth century and its articulation to the rural and the global. I examine the combined speculative investments of the partnership in books, cows, and land to explain how they turned Librería Colombiana into a landmark in the city and benefited from the credit it yielded to further their social standing and economic power. By siphoning off capital from their hacienda to buy foreign books and urban land during the whirlwind of speculation spurred by the urban renovations processes, Camacho Roldán & Tamayo helped connect Bogotá to a global world of books, altering social and spatial relations, and reinforcing the city's domination over its hinterland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses two books, "Puerto Rican Chicago: Schooling the City, 1940-1977" by Mirelsie Velázquez and "The 'Puerto Rican Problem' in Postwar New York City" by Edgardo Meléndez, that explore the experiences of Puerto Rican migrants in mid-twentieth century urban centers. The books highlight the challenges faced by Puerto Ricans in finding housing, employment, and education despite their status as U.S. citizens. The authors caution against comparing Puerto Rican migration to earlier waves of European migration, emphasizing the unique circumstances and relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. Velázquez's book focuses on the educational experiences of Puerto Rican migrants in Chicago, highlighting their struggle for freedom, autonomy, and a sense of belonging. Meléndez's book examines the emergence and impact of the "Puerto Rican problem" campaign in New York City, tracing its evolution and consequences on politics and policies affecting Puerto Ricans. Both books provide valuable insights into the distinct experiences of Puerto Rican migrants and expand our understanding of urban history. [Extracted from the article]

This document explores the relationship between cities and water, emphasizing the need to understand the environmental context and consequences of urban development near water. It discusses the vulnerability of cities to climate change and rising sea levels, and the importance of being aware of the physical features that underlie urban areas. The document reviews four books that examine different watery places and approaches to studying the role of water in urban history. It also emphasizes the significance of considering the non-human world and diverse perspectives in environmental history. The text highlights the impact of water on cities, the challenges posed by climate change, and the potential for historians to contribute to understanding and addressing these issues. [Extracted from the article]

This document provides a summary of three books that discuss the divergent histories of Columbus and Cleveland, two cities in Ohio. The authors shed light on the successes and shortcomings of these cities, contributing to the growing literature on cities in the Midwest. The books explore topics such as business development, environmental change, urban revitalization, and economic shifts. They provide valuable insights into the history and development of these two Ohio cities, highlighting the consequences of deindustrialization and the challenges they faced in establishing a positive image. [Extracted from the article]

This article provides an overview of the history and development of co-ownership, specifically in the form of co-ops and condos, in the United States. It discusses the factors that contributed to the spread of co-ownership, such as societal changes and increased affordability after World War II. The article also explores the financialization of housing and its impact on co-ownership, as well as the potential for progressive forms of co-ownership in the future. The authors present different perspectives on the future of co-ownership, with some being more optimistic than others, but overall, co-ownership is seen as a lasting and evolving model of housing. [Extracted from the article]

This article highlights four books that delve into various aspects of Los Angeles urban history, providing library patrons with a range of perspectives on the city. The books cover topics such as business investments in Mexico, local societies during the Great Depression, gangsta rap, and art and architecture. The common theme across these subjects is the exploration of power structures, including economics, land, race, and culture. Two of the books, "To Live and Defy in LA" by Felicia Angeja Viator and "The Speculative City" by Susanna Phillips Newbury, focus on underrepresented voices and the connection between art and urban form in Los Angeles. "To Live and Defy in LA" examines gangsta rap as a response to economic and social conditions, shedding light on inequality and police violence. "The Speculative City" analyzes the relationship between physical form and economic and cultural power, with a specific focus on Eli Broad's influence and the development of Grand Avenue. Both books emphasize the significance of understanding power structures in shaping the city's landscape. [Extracted from the article]

This article provides a summary of three books that delve into the history of urban schools and their impact on promoting both inequality and opportunity. The first book, "The Importance of Being Urban" by David Gamson, examines four Western school systems during the Progressive Era and argues that urban school districts played a crucial role in educational reform and democracy. The second book, "Educating Harlem" by Ansley Erickson and Ernest Morell, focuses on the history of primary and secondary education in Harlem, highlighting the struggle for educational access, equity, and justice. The third book, "Struggling to Learn" by June Manning Thomas, offers a personal account of school desegregation in South Carolina, shedding light on the ongoing fight for educational equity and justice. These books challenge historians to consider the significance of educational history in understanding urban spaces and the pursuit of equity and justice. [Extracted from the article]

Since the 1990s, cities and professional sports franchises have engaged in a frenzied competition to maintain or lure teams, build modern amenity-laden venues, and revitalize underdeveloped or underperforming downtown areas. This article argues that the case of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (1982) in Minneapolis is instructive for understanding the current context and prevailing trends in stadium redevelopment. To secure a move of baseball and football operations from suburban Bloomington to the city of Minneapolis, boosters and city officials lauded the prospects for downtown revitalization the stadium would bring. Leverage of a stadium's "intangibles" was particularly alluring to municipal and business leadership in the 1970s as cities like Minneapolis wrestled with population loss and a post-industrial reality. Despite promises unfulfilled, threats of franchise loss and the prospect for downtown revitalization in contemporary stadium development games remain a lasting legacy of Minneapolis's dome debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the entrepreneurial and consumptive habits of Mexican Americans in Downey, California, during the 1980s and 1990s. It shows how Mexican Americans avoided ethnic entrepreneurship as they moved into and became the demographic plurality of middle-class Downey. By relying on existing networks of ethnic commerce, Mexican Americans in Downey could simultaneously partake of ethnic entrepreneurship or consumption while acceding to anti-Mexican standards of acceptable business. These place-specific commercial habits allowed Mexican Americans to pursue their new class interests as homeowners without sacrificing their cultural heritage through assimilation. In narrating the complex history of demographic change in Downey, this article suggests how racist assumptions survived as ideas of good business. It also takes seriously the tension between assimilation and ethnic retention, and considers the creation of a Mexican American middle class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1980s, legislation to deregulate mortgage and real estate markets unleashed new levels of predatory lending and speculation in the low-income Black and Latinx neighborhoods of Los Angeles. By decade's end, deregulation resulted in an avalanche of foreclosed and abandoned homes, which became closely associated with gangs who dealt crack cocaine. In 1989, the city began to target these "crime magnets" for removal under "Operation Knockdown," with considerable community support. But drilling down to the neighborhood level reveals this support was not the expression of middle-class Black conservatives or a "Black silent majority," as historians have elsewhere inferred. For some neighbors, the concentration of "nightmare" properties in racialized communities was symptomatic of those communities' exclusion and disempowerment by finance, real estate, and local government. Such community responses to "drug dens" in Los Angeles suggest the limitations of pursuing inclusion in a political economy increasingly organized around asset price inflation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we suggest a new analysis of the decline and abandonment of medieval urban landscapes, using as a case study the thoroughly excavated and documented Caelian Hill in Rome during the eleventh century, supported by notions from modern studies of climate change. We provide evidence for the concurrent decline of the urban landscape and the abandonment of waterways, including the aqueduct of Aqua Claudia that functioned since the first-century CE and was last recorded as functioning ca. 1006 CE. We further point to the implications of these processes on changes in the urban fabric in other areas of the city, challenging previous studies which associate its decline with political and economic circumstances culminating in the Norman sack of 1084. We suggest that these processes should be attributed to the effects of the regional climatic disturbances that affected Central-Southern Italy during the medieval climate anomaly (MCA). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whiteness provides its possessors with the privilege of homeownership without racial restrictions and obstructs black, brown, and Indigenous people. I examine that privilege for the Ottoman Greeks, an early-twentieth-century Southeastern European immigrant cohort to the United States. To conduct the examination, I analyze data from the Dictionary of Races or Peoples, the Segregated Seattle Project, and the Portland Restrictive Covenant Project. Racial formation theory and the concept of racial fluidity provide the framework for this study's three main findings.1 First, housing discrimination impacted Ottoman Greeks less than other racialized groups. Second, Ottoman Greeks experienced this discrimination as racially fluid Greeks or Turks. Finally, Ottoman Greek housing discrimination occurred in elite white communities of Portland and Seattle. My findings illustrate an alternate knowledge of whiteness that, when harnessed by descendants of early-twentieth-century immigrants, can potentially lead them toward anti-racist political advocacy and activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the role of colleges and universities in urban America throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It explores the relationships between higher education institutions and the communities in which they are located, as well as the impact of these institutions on the development of urban landscapes. The article raises questions about the obligations of colleges and universities to serve their surrounding communities and the ways in which they should do so. It also highlights the historical tensions and challenges faced by these institutions in their interactions with local residents. The article reviews several books that delve into the history of urban higher education, offering new insights and perspectives on the subject. Overall, the article emphasizes the significant role that colleges and universities have played in shaping urban America and the ongoing complexities of their relationships with local populations. [Extracted from the article]

This article explores the historical relationship between health and location in the United States, with a focus on urban areas. It discusses four books that delve into the impact of health care practices and policies on various communities throughout American history. The books emphasize the importance of considering cultural traditions and addressing disparities in health care delivery. The article also examines specific case studies, such as maternal and child health care programs in New York City and the development of culturally sensitive clinics in Miami. Overall, the article underscores the need for a nuanced approach to health care that takes into account the diverse perspectives and needs of different communities. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines the intersection of policing and politics in the United States, with a specific focus on New York City and Chicago. It introduces four books that explore the relationship between policing and politics, emphasizing how police practices are influenced by electoral politics and power dynamics within society. The books also delve into the role of police departments in shaping public perception and popular culture. The article concludes by discussing the activism and movements for police accountability that have emerged in response to these issues, highlighting successful efforts to abolish the death penalty and reach reparations for victims of police torture. It also explores the development of youth policing teams and the influence of policing and crime on contemporary political discourse. [Extracted from the article]

This document is a review of three books that examine the relationship between race and suburban life in America. The first book, "The Changs Next Door to the Diazes" by Wendy Cheng, focuses on the experiences of diverse residents in California's West San Gabriel Valley, challenging the dominance of whiteness in suburban narratives. The second book, "Citizen Brown" by Colin Gordon, explores the struggles of African Americans for citizenship and equality in St. Louis, particularly in relation to segregation and policing. The third book, "Race and the Suburbs in American Film" edited by Merrill Schleier, delves into the role of race in the construction and representation of suburban neighborhoods through film. These books offer valuable insights into the complexities of race in suburban America. The text also discusses the issue of racial segregation in St. Louis, examining its impact on housing, education, and the justice system. It explores the historical factors that have contributed to segregation, such as zoning policies, white flight, and urban renewal projects. Additionally, the text explores how these issues are reflected in American films, particularly those set in suburban areas, and how cinema can both perpetuate and challenge racial exclusion. The authors argue that understanding the connections between race, suburbia, and neoliberalism is crucial for addressing and dismantling systemic racism. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines how the post–World War II urban crisis of "Black-on-Black crime" provides a case study for understanding the nuances of modern Black conservatism during the 1970s. It complicates how Black conservatism is commonly understood through a Republican lens by looking at mostly working- and middle-class Democrats in urban communities who remained loyal to the party while adopting conservative views about crime in their neighborhoods. Against the backdrop of civil rights and Black Power militancy, an invisible Black community of anticrime advocates adopted socially conservative views on crime that addressed their racialized, gendered, and socioeconomic experiences in postwar Black America. Their political ideology broadens the definition of Black conservatism to include race, gender, class, and local issues—especially crime—demonstrating its saliency among a wider swathe of the community that extends beyond Black Republicans or self-described conservatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A dominant interpretation of the twentieth-century U.S. city is one of declension, wherein cities contracted following a number of profound ruptures. At these moments, neoliberalism began its ascent, disconnecting the historical processes that created the city from the current policies and realities of American urban centers. By documenting the histories of urban agriculture in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this essay seeks to complicate this declensionist narrative while highlighting the overlooked role that food production played in the growth of a major urban center—all the while providing a usable history for efforts to renew the twenty-first century city. Even during the height of industrial expansion in Milwaukee, urban agriculture played a significant role in the economic, social, and spatial development of the city. Then, as both deindustrialization and responses to such phenomena began to dramatically affect Milwaukee by the 1960s, urban agriculture remained a viable tool for urban redevelopment, one employed by both public- and private-sector actors well into the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1901 until 1920, Albert Kohn, director of the Berlin insurance organization Allgemeine Ortskrankenkasse, conducted a systematic housing survey of defective apartments. The work included statistics, reports, and photographs. I situate the project within the context of social surveys in the years around 1900. In the larger history of housing surveys, Kohn's project was one of the first that amalgamated diverse media and data visualizations. The original publication exhibits a crucial connection between statistics, reports, and apartment photographs. I will show that both reports and photographs epistemically hinged on numerical data gained from a questionnaire. The assemblage of shocking figures in statistics, reports, and photographs was intended to make visible an epistemic object: the misery of the lower classes. Hence, Kohn's depictions of urban misery did not depend on a specific form of representation, but rather on the consistency between descriptive registers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document provides a review of four books on the topic of gentrification from an East Coast perspective. The books offer unique perspectives on the phenomenon of gentrification, focusing primarily on cities along the eastern seaboard. The authors discuss the history and practical application of rehabilitating urban land and buildings, acknowledging the displacement of low-income and minority families while emphasizing the importance of improving urban real estate to prevent decline in property values, crime, and loss of community control. The books explore the origins of gentrification, grassroots movements, and government policies on displacement, with case studies of specific neighborhoods. The review acknowledges the limitations of the books and highlights the need for further exploration of the role of financial institutions and the impact on marginalized communities. [Extracted from the article]

This article studies the socio-environmental history of a steel mill in Manaus, Brazil, the largest city in Amazonia. The Companhia Siderúrgica da Amazônia Sociedade Anônima, SIDERAMA, an integrated steel mill created in 1961 and liquidated in 1997 after a convoluted history of mismanagement, was part of private and public efforts to colonize the Brazilian Amazon through industrial urbanization. Exploring its impacts at a diversity of scales, the article presents it as a historical case study of planetary urbanization. The steel mill polluted the city of Manaus, and resource extraction to feed it with materials and energy disrupted environments and societies deep into the Amazon rainforest. This process underscores the global reach of urbanization during the second half of the twentieth century and the need to rethink the role of Amazonia during the Anthropocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores airplane manufacturing in twentieth-century Seattle to trace the correspondence between major developmental moments in the city's history and broader transitional moments in American empire. In doing so, it argues that Seattle is best understood as an imperial city characterized by four ongoing features: extensive connections beyond the city's nominal borders; sustained alliance between private commercial interests and the state that made such connections possible; a built environment of technological infrastructure made to serve that alliance; and labor forces, segmented by race, subject to the evolving needs of empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the battles over public history and the transformation of urban public history, focusing on examples from Germantown in Philadelphia and the Boston National Historical Park. The authors argue that good urban history should incorporate collective memory and present diverse perspectives and time periods. They discuss the relationship between urban renewal and historic preservation in Boston and Germantown, noting how preservationists often supported urban renewal efforts despite the destruction of historic neighborhoods. The article also examines the racial dynamics of preservation and raises questions about the role of preservation in gentrification. Overall, it emphasizes the importance of community engagement and inclusive storytelling in the practice of history. [Extracted from the article]

In 1965, impoverished Clevelanders and their allies brought dead rats to City Hall to demonstrate that they alone had the required expertise to write antipoverty policy. They used the rats to educate their representatives about poverty conditions after their unsucessful struggle to gain control over the local War on Poverty. Scholarship on the War on Poverty and welfare rights movement has uncovered stories of innovative women who fought for official and unofficial access to policymaking. But our focus on movement leaders and sympathetic allies has obscured how some of these activists defined democracy. Activists in Cleveland envisioned democracy as a system where those affected by a policy had influence over its crafting. Their radical vision of urban municipal policymaking illuminates that historians have over emphasized the concessions that these women forced from their representatives, an interpretation which has inadvertently privileged access to a seat at the table over their larger goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most spectacular events of the Ottoman experience of modernity was the inauguration of the Ottoman General Exposition in Istanbul in 1863. The ancient Hippodrome, which is one of the most prominent venues of the city and the setting of memorable celebrations and festivals for centuries, hosted the event and provided the visitors with the opportunity to become part of the modern regimes of gaze and spectacle. This article posits three observer roles to reveal the multilayered structure of urban spectacle in mid-century Istanbul, namely the sultanic gaze, spectacle of the ordinary citizens, and the mediated experience of the foreigner. To understand the particularities of each position, I utilize several visual and textual documents about the exhibition event. Though just a single case in Ottoman urban history, the exposition enables us to understand how the new manner of modern urban spectacle emerged during a spectacular public event in Istanbul. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the emergence of environmental history as a field of study, with a focus on New York City. It highlights two books, "Fresh Kills" and "Coastal Metropolis," which explore the history of waste disposal and water management in the city. These books shed light on the challenges and complexities of waste management and emphasize the need for sustainable solutions. The article emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of environmental history and the importance of understanding the city's past to address its current environmental challenges. [Extracted from the article]

This text explores the photographic documentary work on the city of Glasgow by Thomas Annan in the mid- to late nineteenth century. I focus on Annan's most well-known project— The Closes and Streets of Old Glasgow, 1868-1871, which remains the most significant urban focus in his work. I will begin by briefly outlining Annan's position in the history of photography and the relation of his photographic work to the city of Glasgow. Subsequently, I will engage directly with the volume of interest and outline the character of the photographs. Finally, I will provide an analysis of Annan's photographic work and the manner in which he contributed to a classed construction of the city of Glasgow through documentary photography. In particular, I will explore the images themselves through the lens of critical visual theory and relate them to the urban space of Glasgow itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the significance of scale in urban history, focusing on Chicago's environmental history. It discusses the influence of William Cronon's book "Nature's Metropolis" on historians' understanding of the city. The article examines various aspects of Chicago's relationship with the natural world, including waste disposal, pollution, and the role of activists. It also addresses current environmental challenges such as the threat of Asian carp and lead water service lines. The article concludes by comparing Chicago's approach to Philadelphia's green infrastructure strategy. Overall, it emphasizes the importance of considering different scales and perspectives to fully comprehend urban environmental history. [Extracted from the article]

This article explores three recently published books on urban planning that delve into the characteristics and resilience of ideal, iconic communities. One book, "Iconic Planned Communities and the Challenge of Change," offers case studies of planned communities from around the world. Another book, "Sunnyside Gardens," focuses on a specific community in Queens, New York. The third book, "John Nolen: Landscape Architect and City Planner," traces the career of America's first city planner. The article highlights the connections and influences among different planners and designers of these communities, emphasizing the belief that well-designed physical environments can promote social well-being and a sense of community. It also discusses common design elements of planned communities, such as grid patterns, mix of housing types, and the presence of a town center. The article examines the resilience and challenges faced by planned communities over time, using case studies like Sunnyside, Greenbelt, and Seaside to illustrate how they have adapted to changes in transportation, governance, housing preferences, and population diversity. It underscores the importance of community support and a sense of place in preserving the original design and heritage of planned communities, concluding that the quality of the initial planning is vital for ensuring the long-term viability and distinctive features of iconic planned communities. [Extracted from the article]

"The Decorated Tenement: How Immigrant Builders and Architects Transformed the Slum in the Gilded Age" by Zachary J. Violette and "How the Working-Class Home Became Modern" by Thomas C. Hubka are two books that provide insight into the lives of ordinary people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States. These books challenge the dominant narrative that focuses on the wealthy and their lavish homes, instead exploring the housing conditions and changes experienced by the working class and poor. Violette's book specifically examines the tenements in New York City, highlighting how immigrant builders and architects adapted these structures to meet the needs and desires of the new American residents. The books also discuss the tensions between housing reformers and tenants, with reformers often imposing their values on lower-class immigrants who were satisfied with their homes. The text mentions that Violette criticizes reformer Jacob Riis for his views on tenements, while Hubka focuses on the middle 60% of the income distribution and their housing improvements. It notes that Hubka's book lacks a racial analysis, but praises Violette for addressing the anti-Semitism faced by Jewish immigrants. Both books demonstrate the improvement in living standards for working-class people during this time period, with Hubka's book specifically examining the modernization of homes and its impact on people's lives. [Extracted from the article]

This article explores the relationship between architecture and political power during the interwar period, specifically focusing on dictatorships in Italy and Germany. It discusses how dictators used architecture as a tool to express and consolidate their ideologies, shaping cities and creating a sense of national identity. The article provides case studies from different countries to illustrate the diverse approaches and outcomes of these architectural interventions. It emphasizes the importance of understanding this relationship to gain insights into these historical periods. [Extracted from the article]

In 1893, China boycotted the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in protest of the Geary Act, which renewed Chinese exclusion for ten years. In the absence of an official Chinese exhibit, a group of Chinese American merchants drew upon a set of theatrical elements associated with Chinatown tours to construct the Chinese Village attraction. For two decades, Chinatown tours had functioned as a form of aggregate entertainment featuring a set of archetypes—including the Restaurant, the Joss House, the Opium Den—that advanced the idea that Chinatown was a "Yellow Peril" to white Americans. The Chinese Village took this aggregate entertainment and attached a different cultural message, one which promoted the Chinese Village as a nonthreatening experience defined by consumption, surface aesthetics, and theatrical performance. In advancing this message, the Chinese Village contributed to a cultural shift that redefined understandings of Chinese immigrants for much of the next century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During World War I, mass migration to military manufacturing centers and the suspension of most private construction placed immense pressure on urban rental housing markets. Seeking to address the wartime housing "emergency," Congress established the nation's first public housing programs and federal agents based in major cities implemented informal policies to control rents. After the war, national policy shifted away from assisting struggling tenants to promoting homeownership for those who could afford it. However, empowered by the assistance they had received during the war, Philadelphia tenants continued to insist on the need for government action to curtail evictions and rising rents. Though divided by race, ethnicity, income, and political affiliation, struggling tenants shared the belief that the city's housing problems required collective solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the ways in which debates about urban policy became a space for members of the literate Turkish public to negotiate the boundary between state and society during a period of dramatic social transformation in the 1930s. Inspired by circulating urbanist discourses, Turkish reformers reimagined society from street level up by passing a series of laws which empowered municipalities and abolished the neighborhood muhtar and council of elders, the basic units of local administration since 1829. Eleven years later, however, these offices were reconstituted and absorbed into municipal bureaucracy where they became the focus of heated party politics and struggles across Turkey. The debates which brought about this transformation, I argue, were ultimately about how far into daily life the authority of the government should extend and in what ways Turkey was able to adopt international standards of urbanism in a time of economic and political uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the spatial effects of the ongoing "decommunization" campaign in Ukraine, a state-led attack on Soviet symbols and ideology in the urban space of the capital, Kyiv. We examine decommunization through the lens of an extensive legacy of architectural, urban design, and monumental art projects erected for the celebration of the 1500th anniversary of the city of Kyiv held in 1982. We focus on four ideological narratives and examine the outcomes of decommunization on four monuments. We find that decommunization's effect is limited; Communist symbolism has been annotated with Ukrainian identity symbols or neglected, not demolished. We conclude that decommunization has focused on the comparatively superficial qualities of toponomy and Lenin symbols, that the legacy of Soviet identity in Kyiv's cityscape is much deeper and has proved surprisingly persistent, and that the historiography of the newly independent nation of Ukraine is still in a process of reformation and revision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shawsheen, a model mill village planned and built in Andover, Massachusetts, between 1906 and 1924, was based on the vision of William Wood, then president of the American Woolen Company. It was arguably the most unique textile mill village ever built in New England. The article begins with a discussion of the motivation for the project. It then shifts to a summary of the critical features of Wood's vision and identifies the historic institutional paths that informed him. This is followed by an analysis of how the plan was successfully implemented and an explanation of what happened to Shawsheen over time. The article ends with an interpretation of the significance of the Shawsheen experience in the context of the history of New England mill towns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1925 and 1928, a fundamental strategy of the Italian fascist regime was the imposition of a political court, the Special Tribunal for the Defense of the State [Tribunale Speciale per la Difesa dello Stato], to control its political enemies and the entire society. One unexplored aspect of the Special Tribunal was its use of long-term surveillance to monitor people brought before the court. Suspects were monitored for long periods even when found innocent or upon release from prison. Blending geographical and historical analysis, specifically HGIS (Historical Geographical Information System), this work contributes to highlight surveillance during the fascist regime, which was less brutal than others not because it was imperfect but because it was sophisticated. Thus, the article also contributes to the understanding of the nature of the Italian fascist regime in comparison to its contemporary counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Israel's civil defense apparatus relies upon a technologically advanced alarm system. Once a rocket is detected, a cellphone app alerts the residents of the targeted area, and only the sirens located close by start wailing. The ability to isolate hundreds of such "alert zones" from one another during conflagrations with the Gaza Strip has been celebrated as the key to Israel's civil and economic resilience. Yet, when the history of this technology is examined, a different picture also emerges. Civil society in Israel has often contested the fragmentation of the country into distinct alert zones and surfaced the social and political inequalities it enhances. By following these claims, this article shows how Israel designed the alert zone system to crumble the traditional notion of emergency and turn it from a collective into an individual experience. The article argues that Israel has shifted the meaning of war, for its citizens, from a political crisis into a series of random events, thus naturalizing the perpetual conflict with the Palestinians, stifling any effective demand for resolving it, and cementing an individualized form of state sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Mother went in to work tonight, how I hate her on Sunday work!," wrote fourteen years old Kathleen Biddlecombe in her diary, on Sunday, January 13, 1918. Kathleen and her family lived on 6 Cobbett Road, London, in Well Hall Garden Suburb—mostly known today as Progress Estate. Built between January and December 1915, in the first year of the First World War, the estate provided some 1,086 houses and 212 flats for the munition workers of the nearby Royal Arsenal factory in Woolwich. This article examines the First World War history of this housing project, by focusing on the diary of young Kathleen. Using the works of Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certueau, the article probes the tensions between the ways this space was planned and built—in accordance with the agenda of the Garden City Movement—and the ways it was produced and used by its inhabitants during the war. It uncovers the production of space by the people whose houses were built along the Well Hall Road, where Route 44 of the Tram stopped to take them to and from the munition factory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the "spatial turn" in the humanities and social sciences, which emphasizes the importance of considering space in understanding social change. It discusses the works of various thinkers in this field and introduces the concept of crisis and its relationship with space. The article presents case studies from different historical periods and ideological contexts to examine the role of spatial practices and representations in shaping power relations and resistance. It concludes by discussing the sources and scales of analysis that historians can use to study the production of space over time. Additionally, the text examines the relationship between crisis and spatial expressions, particularly in urban spaces. It discusses the concept of crisis and its impact on space, using case studies from World War I in London and surveillance in fascist Italy. The text emphasizes the importance of understanding the production of space during times of crisis. Lastly, the article presents three case studies that explore the production of space in times of crisis. These case studies focus on surveillance in fascist Italy, German occupation policy in Poland during World War II, the construction of controlled neighborhoods in Franco's Spain, and the use of sirens in Israel. These case studies highlight the complex relationship between space, crisis, and power. [Extracted from the article]

Two opposed conceptualizations of Granada, shared across poetry, painting (and photography) and music, combined to create a contrasting transmedia soundscape of the city throughout the twentieth century. Granada "the Beautiful" responded to the romantic myth of the city and was rooted mainly in the Alhambra, an Arab palace among the mountains, filled with gardens and water fountains. This idealized image could be heard in Manuel de Falla's literary and pictorial dream: Noches en los Jardines de España [Nights in the Garden of Spain] (1916), and also appeared in Federico García Lorca's musical conception of his city (1933). Fifty years later, the democratic transformation of Spain generally led to a punk, poetic deconstruction of the city in Rimado de ciudad [Rhyming from the City] (1983), singing about the margins of the city: Granada "the Wounded", emerging from the suburbia and from the dark streets of the Arab quarter: the Albaicín. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the significance of the Black Arts Movement (BAM) in urban history and its role in social movements during the 1960s and 1970s. It discusses three recent books that delve into the BAM, showcasing its importance in literature and art history. The article also examines two methodological approaches in BAM studies: the critical cultural approach, which analyzes the artistic qualities of BAM works, and the infrastructural approach, which focuses on the local context and networks that shaped the movement. It emphasizes the influence of cities, institutions, and politics on the BAM, as well as the reciprocal relationship between artists and communities. The article concludes by highlighting two recent books that offer promising methods for understanding the intersection of infrastructure and critical cultural approaches in urban history. These books emphasize the impact of the urban environment on artistic expression and community building. [Extracted from the article]

This article reviews four books that challenge the notion that public schools in American cities are meritocratic institutions. The authors argue that public education perpetuates inequalities of race and class, and that school reform alone cannot address urban inequality. The books explore topics such as suburban schooling, the privatization of urban schooling in New Orleans, and the historical roots of educational inequality in Philadelphia. They offer new perspectives on the relationship between equity and urban education, emphasizing the historical factors that contribute to disparities in urban schools. The authors caution against relying solely on education reform and stress the importance of considering local context and broader social issues in addressing educational inequality. [Extracted from the article]