A 16th century set of Spanish colonization laws explain why L.A. isn't closer to the water.
January 26, 2012
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
A new book on development and urbanization in Africa.
December 30, 2011
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
A photo essay on Old Shanghai, distinct from the rest of the modernizing city.
February 28, 2012
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
A study of German opera houses in the Baroque era finds that a rich arts scene attracts high-human-capital employees who drive economic growth.
December 09, 2011
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
A survey of New York City skyscrapers that were never built.
June 20, 2012
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
In "Boundaries of Power: Politics of Preservation in Two Chicago Neighborhoods" (Urban Affairs Review, July 2011), Yue Zhang examines how aldermanic power affects the historical preservation efforts in the Pilsen and Bronzeville neighborhoods of Chicago.
June 17, 2011
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
American Planning Association (APA)
APA is an independent, not-for-profit educational organization that provides leadership in the development of vital communities. The American Planning Association was created in 1978 by the consolidation of two separate planning organizations, but its roots go all the way back to 1909 and the first National Conference on City Planning in Washington, D.C.
Filed under: Organizations
An article about the highway teardown movement in the post-Interstate era.
February 27, 2012
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
An editorial on allowing places to evolve while retaining their historic character.
January 13, 2012
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
Announcing the 2013 Urban Forums
Between 26 April and 11 May 2013, the Network will host four conferences on the University of Chicago campus in Hyde Park to discuss the built environment, globailization and mobility, political networks and health in cities.
November 29, 2012
Filed under: Issues
Assisted Housing: National and Local
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
Picture of Subsidized Households describes the households living in HUD-subsidized housing in the United States for the year providing data from the 1970s through 2008. There is information describing the characteristics of assisted housing units and residents, summarized at various levels, including: national, state, public housing agency (PHA), project, census tract, county, Core-Based Statistical Area and city levels.
Filed under: Data
Black Metropolis Research Consortium
Columbia College, Chicago Public Library, Chicago History Museum, Chicago State University, DePaul University, Dominican University, DuSable Museum of African American History, Illinois Institute of Technology, Kennedy King College, Loyola University, Roosevelt University, Northwestern University, University of Illinois Chicago, University of Chicago
The Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) is an unincorporated Chicago-based association of libraries, universities, and other archival institutions with major holdings of materials that document African American and African diasporic culture, history, and politics, with a specific focus on materials relating to Chicago. The University of Chicago serves as Host Institution of the BMRC.
The BMRC is dedicated to making broadly accessible its members' holdings of materials that document African American and African diasporic culture, history, and politics, with a specific focus on materials relating to Chicago.
Filed under: Organizations
Boston Streets: Mapping Directory Data
Tufts University
Boston Streets: Mapping Directory Data contextualizes the people, places and events that have shaped the city from the years before the American Civil War through 20th-century urban renewal.
Filed under: Links
British History Online (Urban and Metropolitan)
University of London and History of Parliament Trust
British History Online is a source for historial data and documents pertaining to British urban and metropolitan history. The directory includes materials from a variety of subjects and resources including maps, surveys, and official government documents.
Filed under: Links
Margaret Garb asks why housing wasn't a part of Daniel Burnham's 1909 plan of Chicago in the Journal of Planning History.
April 19, 2011
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
Census UK
Economic and Social Data Service
UK Census data.
Filed under: Data
Center for Metropolitan History
University of London
The Centre for Metropolitan History (CMH), established by the Institute in 1988, is one of the world’s leading centers for the study of the history of London and other metropolises. It specializes in innovative research projects, covering a wide range of periods, themes and problems in metropolitan history, publishing the results and data online and in print. The Center runs a seminar, and organizes workshops and conferences on many different topics in metropolitan and urban history.
Filed under: Organizations
Center for Urban and Community Studies
University of Toronto
The Center for Urban and Community Studies (CUCS), established in 1964, promotes and disseminates multidisciplinary research and policy analysis on urban issues.
The Centre's activities contribute to scholarship on questions relating to the social, economic and physical well-being of people who live and work in urban areas large and small, in Canada and around the world.
Filed under: Organizations
Center for Urban History (Antwerp)
University of Antwerp
The Centre for Urban History at the University of Antwerp (CSG) strives to investigate important aspects of urban culture, economy, religion, politics and institutions from the Middle Ages to the present, in relation to each other and to non-urban structures. Specific research topics on which the Centre places particular emphasis include civil society and urban identities, material culture and urban renaissances; the role of cities as centers of knowledge, creativity and innovation; economic growth and social inequality; migration and urban networks; and the urban living environment in the broadest sense. The geographic emphasis rests on north-western Europe, but always in an international and comparative perspective.
Filed under: Organizations
Center for Urban History (Leicester)
University of Leicester
Established in 1985, the Centre for Urban History (CUH) is a specialist research center of international academic excellence which attracts MA and PhD students from around the world. The Centre maintains active links with academics and research institutions across the globe.
Filed under: Organizations
Center for Urban History of East Central Europe (Ukraine)
As an institute of historical scholarship, we seek to offer fresh intellectual impulses and help abandon dated questions and preconceived answers. By information and open discussion, we try to help prevent history from being abused for political ends. Through conferences, seminars and exhibitions we hope to promote scholarly and cultural exchange.
Filed under: Organizations
Center for Urban Initiatives and Research
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
The Milwaukee Urban Archive is designed as a catalogue of research studies and reports focused on greater Milwaukee and Southeastern Wisconsin. Each catalogued item provides bibliographic information, content abstract, source and, where possible, an electronic link to the report. The catalogue is organized by topical categories.
Filed under: Organizations
Center for Urban Studies- University at Buffalo
University at Buffalo
The Center for Urban Studies (CENTER) is a research and community development unit located in the UB School of Architecture and Planning. It's mission is to (1) engage in research that produces knowledge which contributes to understanding and solving the problem of neighborhood distress and building a sustainable urban metropolis (2) develop a model for transforming distressed urban neighborhoods into socially functional communities that are based on the principles of solidarity, collaboration, cosmopolitanism, reciprocity, participatory democracy and social justice, and (3) train students in urban and regional planning with the ability to recreate and rebuild a sustainable metropolis based on socioeconomic justice.
Filed under: Organizations
Center for Urban Studies- Wayne State University
Wayne State University
The mission of Wayne State University's Center for Urban Studies is to improve understanding of and provide innovative responses to urban challenges and opportunities. Committed to serving Detroit and its metropolitan area, the Center pursues its mission by conducting and disseminating research, developing policies and programs, and providing training, capacity-building, and technical assistance.
The Center participates in defining and influencing local, regional, state and national urban policy. It engages community, government, institutions, and policymakers in collaboration with university faculty and resources to transform knowledge into action.
Filed under: Organizations
Chicago Imagebase
The Chicago Imagebase is a Web-based project aimed at enhancing knowledge about the built environment of the Chicago region. On this site you will find a wide variety of images and other data along with information on how to use this data to study the city.
Filed under: Data
Chicago Studies
University of Chicago
Program that offers courses connecting the University with Chicago, supporting faculty with research interests of Chicago, and supporting programs and events that connect the University with the city's communities, it's leaders, and it's past, present, and future.
Filed under: Organizations
Cities Centre
University of Toronto
Cities Centre is a multi-disciplinary research institute. The mandate of the Centre is broad: to encourage and facilitate research, both scholarly and applied, on cities and on a wide range of urban policy issues, both in Canada and abroad, and to provide a gateway for communication between the University and the broader urban community.
Filed under: Organizations
Cities get creative in studying and transforming vacant lots.
August 30, 2011
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
Cities in the 21st Century
International Honors Program
Cities in the 21st Century program examines the intentional and natural forces that guide the development of the world’s cities. It combines an innovative urban studies academic curriculum with fieldwork involving public agencies, planners, elected officials, NGOs and grassroots groups in important world cities where exciting changes are taking place.
Filed under: Links
CNN continues their series on the famous planned suburb of Levittown.
January 09, 2012
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
Charlotte Brooks on competition and ethnic rivalry in San Francisco's Chinatown between 1937 and 1942, in the Journal of Urban History.
April 13, 2011
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
Digitized primary-source records of the Committee of Fifteen's investigation into sin in Chicago are now available
August 14, 2012
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
Driverless cars present new possibilities for transportation policy and the American city.
March 07, 2012
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
Economic and Social Data Service
The Economic and Social Data Service is a national data archiving and dissemination service in the UK which came into operation in January 2003. The service is a jointly-funded initiative sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC).
The ESDS is a distributed service, based on a collaboration between four key centres of expertise:
UK Data Archive (UKDA), University of Essex
Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) , University of Essex
Manchester Information and Associated Services (MIMAS), University of Manchester
Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research (CCSR), University of Manchester
These centres work collaboratively to provide preservation, dissemination, user support and training for an extensive range of key economic and social data, both quantitative and qualitative, spanning many disciplines and themes. The ESDS provides an integrated service offering enhanced support for the secondary use of data across the research, learning and teaching communities.
Filed under: Data
European Association for Urban History
The European Association for Urban History was established in 1989 with the support of the European Union. The Association organizes conferences every two years. These biannual conferences provide a multidisciplinary forum for historians, sociologists, geographers, anthropologists, art and architectural historians, economists, planners and all others working on different aspects of urban history. Membership in the Association is free of charge, and is demonstrated by repeated active participation at the conferences. The Association supports participation of young scholars by stipends, which cover registration fees, and since 2010 it even offers mobility stipends in a limited number of justified cases. The first conference took place in Amsterdam in 1992.
Filed under: Organizations
Every city and town in New York state is required to have an official historian.
September 14, 2012
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
Forgotten Chicago
The main goal of Forgotten Chicago is to discover and document little known elements of Chicago’s infrastructure, architecture, neighborhoods and general cityscape, whether existing or historical.
Secondarily, the hope is that exposing many of the often overlooked elements of Chicago’s built environment to a wider audience will result in more interest in their preservation. Certainly, much of the content on the site is included mainly for documentation and historical reasons, and of course not every old structure in the city is worthy of being preserved. However, some of the structures included on the site are little known but of important architectural and historical interest. The hope is that their inclusion will raise public awareness and result in their preservation rather than demolition in the future.
Filed under: Links
Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy
New York University
The Furman Center is a joint research center of the New York University School of Law and the New York University Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service. The Furman Center conducts interdisciplinary empirical and legal research about housing, land use, real estate, and urban affairs. Since its founding in 1995, the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy has become a leading academic research center devoted to the public policy aspects of land use, real estate development and housing.
Filed under: Organizations
GaWC Research Network Data
Loughborough University
The Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) Research Network provids relational data on world cities that have been neglected by researchers.
Filed under: Data
H-Urban
International Planning History Society, Society for American City and Regional Planning History, and the Urban History Association
H-URBAN is an international electronic discussion network. The primary purpose of H-Urban is to enable historians and others interested in urban history and urban studies to communicate current research and research interests easily; to query and discuss new approaches, sources, methods and tools of analysis; and to comment on contemporary historiography. To accomplish these goals, H-Urban informs historians of announcements, calls for papers and conferences, awards, fellowships, reviews of books and websites, availability of new sources and archives, as well as reports on new research and teaching tools, which may include books, articles, works-in-progress, research reports, primary historical documents (e.g. model ordinances, federal/state/local reports, addresses of city officials), syllabi, bibliographies, software, datasets and multimedia publications or projects.
Filed under: Links
H-Urban Teaching Center
H-Urban
The H-Urban Teaching Center encourages the discussion of teaching urban history and urban studies, including alternative approaches, methods, and tools by providing faculty and students easy access to pedagogical articles, lesson plans, and syllabi in the hope that these provide ideas and information for work both in and out of the classroom:
Filed under: Links
Historical 1902 maps reveal how Buffalo, New York has changed over time.
January 02, 2012
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
Paris and New York City’s distinctive physical and socioeconomic characteristics are borne out in their different histories.
December 16, 2011
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
Historypin
Historypin is an internet resource layering historic photographs over the physical spaces in cities where they were taken.
Filed under: Links
Homicide in Chicago
Northwestern University
The years between 1870 and 1930 marked the emergence of Chicago as a dominant American city, undergoing some of the most dramatic and extensive social, political and economic changes in our national history. Against this backdrop we present a unique record – the Chicago Police Department Homicide Record Index – chronicling 11,000 homicides in the city during those years.
Filed under: Data
Honolulu Land Information System
City of Honolulu
The City and County of Honolulu has developed one of the most comprehensive GIS data base for any municipality of its size. The Honolulu Land Information System (HoLIS) is an enterprise-wide system serving over 15 City Departments with land use, permit, tax, infrastructure, and environmental data. Geographically referenced information links existing City records to precise locations on the island of Oahu for spatial query and analysis.
Filed under: Data
Hyper Cities
UCLA
HyperCities is a digital research and educational platform for exploring, learning about, and interacting with the layered histories of city and global spaces. Using Google Maps and Google Earth, HyperCities essentially allows users to go back in time to create and explore the historical layers of city spaces in an interactive, hypermedia environment.
Filed under: Links
The Hypercities project at UCLA layers historical city maps over contemporary images from Google Earth in an interactive online resource.
May 18, 2011
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
Initiative for Regional and Community Transformation
Rutgers University
The Initiative for Regional and Community Transformation (IRCT) is a university-based effort that helps community residents and leaders in the public and private sectors frame workable policies that will bolster the political, economic, and social participation of marginalized communities within the larger metropolitan community. The IRCT's vision is inclusive. Not only does it encompass concerns for the poor, but leaders of the Initiative also believe that in order for metropolitan regions to support sustainable and livable communities, all sectors of civil society must be involved and see a shared interest.
Filed under: Organizations
Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, Current Population Survey
Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota
IPUMS-CPS is an integrated set of data from 49 years (1962-2010) of the March Current Population Survey (CPS). The CPS is a monthly U.S. household survey conducted jointly by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Initiated in the 1940s in the wake of the Great Depression, the survey was designed to measure unemployment. A battery of labor force and demographic questions, known as the "basic monthly survey," is asked every month. Over time, supplemental inquiries on special topics have been added for particular months. Among these supplemental surveys, the March Annual Demographic File and Income Supplement (hereafter referred to as the March CPS) is the most widely used by social scientists and policymakers, and it provides the data for IPUMS-CPS.
Filed under: Data
Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, USA
Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota
The Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS-USA) consists of more than fifty high-precision samples of the American population drawn from fifteen federal censuses and from the American Community Surveys of 2000-2009. Some of these samples have existed for years, and others were created specifically for this database. These samples, which draw on every surviving census from 1850-2000, and the 2000-2009 ACS samples, collectively constitute the richest source of quantitative information on long-term changes in the American population. However, because different investigators created these samples at different times, they employed a wide variety of record layouts, coding schemes, and documentation. This has complicated efforts to use them to study change over time. The IPUMS assigns uniform codes across all the samples and brings relevant documentation into a coherent form to facilitate analysis of social and economic change.
Filed under: Data
Is sub-Saharan Africa becoming urbanized?
Research on urban growth has traditionally focused on the Western metropolis. In recent years, scholars have started to examine the growth patterns of cities in other regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa, and to question the universality of the Western model of urban development. While earlier data had led many scholars to conclude that cities in that region are growing at an unprecedented rate, new research has challenged the notion that Africa is fast becoming an urban continent.
April 01, 2012
Filed under: Issues
Joint Center for Housing Studies
Harvard University
The Joint Center for Housing Studies is Harvard University's center for information and research on housing in the United States. The Joint Center analyzes the dynamic relationships between housing markets and economic, demographic, and social trends, providing leaders in government, business, and the non-profit sector with the knowledge needed to develop effective policies and strategies.
Filed under: Organizations
Journal of Planning History
Society for American City and Regional Planning History
Journal of Planning History (JPH), peer-reviewed and published quarterly, focuses on the history of city and regional planning, with particular emphasis on the Americas. JPH covers the full range of topics embraced by city and regional planning history, including planning history in the Americas, transnational planning experiences, planning history pedagogy, planning history in planning practice, the intellectual roots of the planning processes, and planning history historiography.
Filed under: Journals
Journal of Urban Design
The Journal of Urban Design is a scholarly international journal which advances theory, research and practice in urban design. There is a growing recognition of the need for urban design in shaping, managing and improving the quality of the urban environment. It is now considered one of the core knowledge components of planning education and practice and is equally important for architectural education and practice. Thus, increasing numbers of architects, planners, surveyors, landscape architects and other professions concerned with the quality of urban development are specialising in urban design.
The Journal of Urban Design provides a new forum to bring together those contributing to this re-emerging discipline and enables researchers, scholars, practitioners and students to explore its many dimensions. The Journal publishes original articles in specialised areas such as urban aesthetics and townscape; urban structure and form; sustainable development; urban history, preservation and conservation; urban regeneration; local and regional identity; design control and guidance; property development; practice and implementation.
Filed under: Journals
Journal of Urban History
The Journal of Urban History (JUH), peer-reviewed and published bi-monthly, provides scholars and professionals with the latest research, analyses, and discussion on the history of cities and urban societies throughout the world. JUH presents original research by distinguished authors from the variety of fields concerned with urban history. Each insightful issue offers the latest scholarship on such topics as public housing, migration, urban growth, and more.
Filed under: Journals
Late 19th- and Early 20th-Century Urban Rail Transit Maps
University of Chicago
The maps included on this site roughly illustrate the history of urban rail transit between the 1860s and the 1920s. These years were the heyday of urban rail transit. Virtually every city in the Western world and in its colonial offshoots had street railroads during much or all of this period. Streetcars were drawn by horses in the early years. The invention of the grip cable in 1870s and of electric traction in the late 1880s greatly increased their speed and reliability. By the end of the 19th century, everyday urban life was completely dependent on this mode of transport.
Filed under: Data
Locating London’s Past
Website allowing users to search a wide body of digital resources relating to early modern and eighteenth-century London, and to map the results on to a fully GIS compliant version of John Rocque's 1746 map.
Filed under: Data
London Lives
University of Hertfordshire, University of Sheffield, Economic and Social Research Council, HRI
A searchable resource on crime, poverty, and social policy in London from 1690-1800 featuring 240,000 manuscripts from 8 archives, and 15 datasets, with access to 3.35 million names.
Filed under: Data
Mapping London
Highlighting the best of maps of London. Mapping people, places, data, things
Filed under: Data
Mapping Medieval Townscapes
Archaeological Data Service
This resource derives from the Mapping the Medieval Urban Landscape research project which began in 2003 with two years of funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Using mapping as a medium, the project examined how urban landscapes were shaped in the middle ages; the project furthers an understanding of the forms and formation of medieval towns. It is the first project to have used spatial technologies – Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) – as a basis for mapping and analyzing medieval urban landscapes.
Filed under: Links
Modern Walks: Human Locomotion during the Long Nineteenth Century, c. 1800 -1914
September 13–September 14, 2013
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Filed under: Events
Mogadishu, today torn with strife, was once a grand colonial city.
November 24, 2011
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
Mothers Alone : Poverty and the Fatherless Family, 1955-1966 UK
Economic and Social Data Service
The study explores the lives and experiences of mothers living alone: unmarried, separated, divorced or widowed. The study posed two questions: what is poverty and who are the fatherless? The study asked about housing conditions, homelessness, diet and nutrition, family relations, marriage and marital breakdowns, and the levels and adequacy of community and national assistance. The interviewees were asked about detailed indicators of poverty and also the subjective, felt experience of poverty. The study examined problems families faced as a consequence of both low income and lack of fathers, the causes of their circumstances, and the adequacy of assistance provided by community and national sources.
Filed under: Data
Museum of the City of New York
Museum of the City of New York explores the past of New York and celebrates New York’s heritage of diversity, opportunity, and perpetual transformation.
Filed under: Organizations
National Historical Geographic Information System
The National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) provides, free of charge, aggregate census data and GIS-compatible boundary files for the United States between 1790 and 2000.
Filed under: Data
National Longitudinal Surveys
Bureau of Labor Statistics
The National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) are a set of surveys designed to gather information at multiple points in time on the labor market activities and other significant life events of several groups of men and women. For more than 4 decades, NLS data have served as an important tool for economists, sociologists, and other researchers.
Filed under: Data
A new website publishes multimedia works in urban scholarship that incorporate maps and other graphics.
February 09, 2012
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
New York City Zoning Resolution Collection
City of New York, Department of City Planning
A detailed collection of zoning resolutions and ordinances in mid 20th century New York City
Filed under: Data
Panel Study of Income Dynamics
University of Michigan
The Panel Study of Income Dynamics - PSID - is the longest running longitudinal household survey in the world. The study began in 1968 with a nationally representative sample of over 18,000 individuals living in 5,000 families in the United States. Information on these individuals and their descendants has been collected continuously, including data covering employment, income, wealth, expenditures, health, marriage, childbearing, child development, philanthropy, education, and numerous other topics. The PSID is directed by faculty at the University of Michigan, and the data are available on this website without cost to researchers and analysts.
The data are used by researchers, policy analysts, and teachers around the globe. Over 3,000 peer-reviewed publications have been based on the PSID. Recognizing the importance of the data, numerous countries have created their own PSID-like studies that now facilitate cross-national comparative research. The National Science Foundation recognized the PSID as one of the 60 most significant advances funded by NSF in its 60 year history.
Filed under: Data
Photographs of London from the early 1900s reveal rich details about one of the world's greatest cities.
December 20, 2011
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
Questioning whether gentrification is always a bad thing.
March 30, 2012
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
Research Center for Urban Cultural History
University of Massachusetts Boston
The Research Center for Urban Cultural History (RCUCH) premises its work on the multi-disciplinary study of cities as dynamic sites where cultures are generated, renegotiated and transmitted. Housed within an institution of higher learning with a commitment to an urban mission and an exceptionally diverse student body, and located in a city richly endowed with intellectual resources, the RCUCH initiates and facilitates scholarly and teaching projects that explore a wide array of possible links between studies of cities in the U.S. and throughout the world, encompassing both contemporary and historical topics. The Center's educational, scholarly, and outreach activities are directed toward achieving a flexible, comprehensive and innovative approach to urban cultural history in a global context.
The Center's principal focus is on interdisciplinary and collaborative research and teaching in urban cultural history. This field focuses on: the specificity of the urban setting and its environs; spatial definition; demographic and economic shifts; temporal change; cultural exchange and cultural transformation; and discursive and signifying networks created by the production of meaning between groups and populations.
Filed under: Organizations
Satellite imagery is used to map the world’s first cities in the Fertile Crescent.
March 27, 2012
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
Seattle Municipal Archives
City of Seattle
The Seattle Municipal Archives (SMA) holds over 10,000 cubic feet of records documenting the history, development, and activities of the agencies and elected officials of Seattle. Some of the research strengths of the holdings include parks, engineering, legislative activities, and urban planning.
Filed under: Links
SepiaTown
SepiaTown
The objective of SepiaTown is to map a virtual past by collecting and mapping a vast collection of historical and vintage photographs, prints, film, audio and other media.
Filed under: Links
Social Explorer
Social Explorer contains over 18,000 maps, hundreds of profile reports, 40 billion data elements, 335,000 variables and 220 years of data. Interactive mapping and reporting tools let you explore a vast array of demographic data quickly and easily. Available Maps and Reports Include: Census data from 1790 to 2010, American Community Survey (all), Religion data from InfoGroup 2009, Religion data from RCMS 1980 to 2000, Carbon emissions from the Vulcan Project/
Filed under: Data
Social Science History Association Urban Network
The urban network endeavors to bring social scientific and historical modes of analysis to the urban form. We are interested in the historical trajectory of the city, the spatial forms linked to the urban life, social arrangements, governance and politics, the specificity of urban economics, cultural forms that emerge and thrive in cities, urban institutions, place identities, real and imagined urban forms, and the historical trajectory of specifically urban phenomena across regional, temporal, and cultural categories. As a collective enterprise, the urban network seeks to highlight the unique scholarship, insight, and activities related to the city in a forum that encourages new ideas, dialogue, and innovation.
Filed under: Organizations
Society for American City and Regional Planning History
The Society for American City and Regional Planning History (SACRPH) is an interdisciplinary organization dedicated to promoting scholarship on the planning of cities and metropolitan regions over time, and to bridging the gap between the scholarly study of cities and the practice of urban planning.
Filed under: Organizations
The Big Think blog recounts the 1917 planning of a false Paris, 18 miles from the true city center, to throw off German bombers.
November 18, 2011
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia
Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities, Rutgers University
The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia is a civic project to increase understanding of one of America’s greatest cities. From abolition and the American Revolution to yellow fever and zoos (with cheesesteaks, rowhouses, and hundreds of other topics in between), the digital Encyclopedia volume and its print volume will offer the most comprehensive, authoritative reference source ever created for the Philadelphia region.
Filed under: Links
The Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory
Chicago History Museum
The Great Chicago Fire & the Web of Memory consists of two main parts. The first part, titled The Great Chicago Fire, includes five chronologically organized sections that together present a history of the fire. The sections of the second part, The Web of Memory, examine six ways in which the fire has been remembered: eyewitness accounts, contemporary journalism and illustrations, imaginative forms such as literature and art, the legend of Mrs. O'Leary and her cow, fire souvenirs of many different kinds, and formal commemorations and exhibitions. Each of the sections has three integrated components: thematic galleries of images, a library of texts, and an interpretive essay.
Filed under: Links
The history and design of Chicago's Cabrini-Green housing project and the development that replaced it.
February 21, 2012
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
The history of SoHo, NY and how galleries, restaurants and boutiques came to define gentrified retail.
May 02, 2012
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
The story of New York's street grid from its 19th-century beginnings, through maps.
December 28, 2011
Filed under: New & Noteworthy
The Transformation of Urban Britain since 1945
July 9–July 10, 2013
University of Leicester
Leicester, United Kingdom
Filed under: Events
The Urbanophile
Aaron M. Renn is The Urbanophile, an opinion-leading urban affairs analyst, entrepreneur, speaker, and writer on a mission to help America’s cities thrive in the 21st century. In the Urbanophile he has created a destination for serious, in depth, non-partisan, and non-dogmatic analysis and discussion of the issues facing America’s cities and regions in the 21st century. The Urbanophile site began in 2006, and it has developed into one of America’s top urban policy destinations.
Filed under: Links
Toronto residents use Twitter to engage in a novel community history project.
September 07, 2011
Filed under: New & Noteworthy