The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina laid bare the tragedy of American cities. What the storm revealed about the social conditions in New Orleans shocked many Americans. Even more shocking is how widespread these conditions are throughout much of urban...
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
The Death and Life of Great American Cities is a 1961 book by writer and activist Jane Jacobs. The book is a critique of 1950s urban planning policy, which it holds responsible for the decline of many city neighborhoods in the United States. The book is Jacobs' best-known and most influential work.
We’re the mayors of Paris, Milan and Phoenix. The heat crisis has us all facing the same question | Emmanuel Grégoire, Giuseppe Sala and Kate Gallego
Our three cities are learning from each other about how to protect residents. These climate policies are also public health measures
A City for Children — Oakland Public Library
A City for Children — Gutman, Marta, — American cities are constantly being built and rebuilt, resulting in ever-changing skylines and neighborhoods. While the dynamic urban landscapes of New York, Boston, and Chicago have been widely studied, there is much to be gleaned from West Coast cities, especially in California, where the migration boom at the end of the nineteenth century permanently changed the urban fabric of these newly diverse, plural metropolises. In A City for Children Marta Gutman focuses on the use and reuse of everyday buildings in Oakland, California, to make the city a better place for children. She introduces us to the women who were determined to mitigate the burdens placed on working-class families by an indifferent industrial capitalist economy. Often without the financial means to build from scratch, women did not tend to conceive of urban land as a blank slate to be wiped clean for development. Gutman shows how, over and over, women instead turned private houses and even a saloon in Oakland into orphanages, kindergartens, settlement houses, and day care centers, and in the process built the charitable landscape--a network of places that was critical for the betterment of children, families, and public life. The industrial landscape of Oakland, riddled with the effects of social inequality and racial prejudice, is not a neutral backdrop in Gutman's story but an active player. Spanning one hundred years of history, A City for Children provides a compelling model for building urban institutions, and it demonstrates that children, women, charity, and reform, along with incremental construction, renovations, alterations, additions, and repurposed structures, are central to the understanding of modern cities.
Maloney, Nadler ask NYC mayors what they knew about health hazards at Ground Zero
What did then-New York City Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg really know about the toxic threats posed by the ruins for the World Trade Center, and when did they know it? More than two decades after the catastrophic attacks, and…
Confronting New York City's Lies About Toxic Air After 9/11
Plus, a selection of some of the best writing on 9/11, and more news to take you into the weekend.
NYC: can this city-state be completely self-reliant? | Aeon Essays
Green living in NYC need not be simple living – think skyscraper farms, meat-production towers and revamped aqueducts
Nowhere to Go: The Loss of Third Places
Opinion | One City Might Have Just Cracked the Housing Crisis
A large real estate development in the middle of Vancouver, British Columbia, shows how cities can build more housing.
A City in Common: A Framework to Orchestrate Large-scale Citizen Engagement around Urban Issues
As part of the Digital Library's transition to Open Access, new features for researchers are available in the Premium Edition. Click here to learn more.
Flânerie without Politics: The Middle-Class Fetishization of the City
The middle-class spectacle of urban decay.
Urban problems: nature-based solutions and a Green New Deal everywhere
Nature-based Solutions with localised Green New Deals could save our settlements, and provide a just transition to a low-carbon society
The Local Connection Crisis: New Data on What Communities Need
‘Somalis are the scapegoat’: fear rises as Trump targets Minneapolis community
Residents have had to adjust how they’re living – staying home, carrying passports – since Trump launched his attack
Climate Change: Global Crisis To Local Action By Kevin Anderson
Disaster preparedness in the US
Starting with some articles I saved during/after the January 2025 wildfires in Southern California
Cheat Sheet: These are the steps fire victims need to take to make an insurance claim
What to do — and not do — when you get home after a fire evacuation
High winds and fires mean power outages. Here's how to prep
Evacuation terms can be confusing. Here’s what they mean and how to sign up for alerts
Every day is now fire season. Let's get you ready for the next wildfire burning near you
Cheat sheet: A quick roundup of SoCal fire coverage and safety resources