Norton E. Long (1910-1993), through his writings, teaching, mentoring, and extensive public service, was an extraordinary public intellectual. He was committed to understanding and improving governance and the functioning of public bureaucracy in a democratic society; making the public interest and improving the human condition the core missions for civic participation and leadership; and warned of the perils of a racially-segregated metropolis and society.

Hudson Yards in New York City. L.A. Live in Los Angeles. Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia. The Amazon HQ2 in Crystal City, Virginia. Cities in the U.S. are competing with each other for corporate investment and population growth, and mega-developments are an increasingly popular way to redevelop distressed urban areas. But can multi-million dollar mega-development projects serve as revitalization engines for cities while building partnerships and neighborhood capacities for economically struggling communities?

Emerging from the profound crises that decimated the economy and social fabric of Colombia’s second city Medellin in the period 1980-2000, a grassroots movement and a powerful corporate group (GEA) formed a governing alliance that assured the world that the city had risen from the ashes. The new millennium saw strategic signature interventions in the poorest and most violent sectors of the city which captured the attention of the world while a public-private partnership consolidated the interests of the corporate group.

One distinctive characteristic of homelessness in Los Angeles is its higher share of the homeless population which is unsheltered. Approximately 72% of the total homeless population in this area remains unsheltered, much higher than the national average of 35%. As a result, the Los Angeles area contains roughly a quarter of all unsheltered homeless people in the nation. The number of unsheltered homeless individuals in Los Angeles is also more than ten times that of New York City—the city with the highest homeless population in the US.

Imagine that residents of New York City awoke tomorrow to reports that the governor of New York State had authorized, without public consultation, a far-reaching change to the city’s territorial map: Brooklyn would be split into two boroughs and the Bronx would merge with newly annexed Westchester County to form a northern mega-borough. This would be huge and highly contentious news for New Yorkers, with far-reaching implications for business, housing, infrastructure, public services, and governmental operations across the metropolis.

In our new UAR article, we look at race and gentrification in three Chicago neighborhoods: Garfield Park, Pilsen and Humboldt Park, where we map changes in demographics, property value, and material conditions. We know that gentrification is not always linear, and its multiple causes not universal, but enacted through urban phenomena as disparate as toxic loans, planned gallery districts, and subway restoration.

The police force’s discriminatory treatment toward Black residents has long been a significant social issue in the U.S. There is substantial empirical evidence showing that Black people are more likely than White people to be stopped-and-frisked and to be arrested for minor offenses. The issue of discriminatory policing has become more publicly salient over the last few years following several high-profile police-involved deaths of Black residents.

In September 2020, the Swedish government commissioned the National Board of Housing, Building and Planning to “review any obstacles for using the BID method” to help address socio-economic exclusion in struggling urban areas. Stressing BIDs’ putative success in dealing with similar issues in other parts of the world, the government has argued that coalitions of local property owners, together with residents and public actors, could help “lift” socio-economically challenged neighborhoods out of poverty through real estate investments, crime prevention, and security measures.

Eviction is often seen as a city problem. We tend to think of the eviction crisis as playing out in urban neighborhoods, both in high-poverty places where eviction is a constant threat and in gentrifying neighborhoods where long-term residents may be at growing risk of being forced out. This overlooks what's going on outside of inner cities, leaving us blind to eviction patterns in suburban areas.