Urban Affairs Review

The second miniseries of our new(ish) podcast, UAR Remixed, launched earlier this month. Catch episodes one and two now on your favorite streaming app! This series focuses on topics and themes related to cities and migration, and features interviews with Leslie Gross-Wrytzen (Yale University), Andrew Baldwin (Durham University), David Kaufmann (ETH Zurich), Deirdre Conlon (University of Leeds), Nancy Hiemstra (Stony Brook University), and Domenic Vitiello (University of Pennsylvania).

Details on episode one can be found here:

Mobile Borders and Urban Landscapes — Urban Affairs Review Mobile Borders and Urban Landscapes: Navigating the Boundaries of Belonging

The final installment of our first podcast miniseries on UAR Remixed is now live! Check out the show page on our website for links to listen on your favorite podcast app, and get access to show notes, a reading list, and the full episode transcript. Subscribe today!

Analog alternatives to the urban platform — Urban Affairs Review Part four of our four-part miniseries, "Cityscapes Reimagined: Navigating and Rewiring the Urban"

Episode 2 is LIVE! What's so smart about the smart city, anyway? Check out part 2 of our four-part miniseries on cities and technology. You can listen on our website or find us on your favorite streaming platform -- just search for UAR Remixed.

How smart is the Smart City? — Urban Affairs Review Part two of our four-part miniseries, "Cityscapes Reimagined: Navigating and Rewiring the Urban"

WE'RE LIVE! Check out our brand-new companion podcast, "UAR Remixed."
Our first episode is part one of a four part miniseries on cities and technology. We spoke with Shannon Mattern, Ayonna Datta, Ryan Burns, Erin McElroy, John Stehlin, and David Banks about their insights and perspectives on topics at the intersection of technology and urbanism.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Technology — Urban Affairs Review Episode one of our miniseries on cities and technology, "Cityscapes Reimagined: Navigating and Rewiring the Urban"

Now online! Read about Christopher Cooper and Heather Rimes' study of over 4,000 municipalities. They develop a systematic measure of local legislative professionalism and outline the implications of considerable variation across jurisdictions.

Towards a Measure of Local Legislative Professionalism — Urban Affairs Review Local legislatures are not, on average, poorly resourced institutions that are staffed by citizen legislatures, nor are they professional bodies more akin to Congress. Instead, much like state legislatures, they tend to fall somewhere in the middle, with most municipalities taking on some characteri

Now available open-access! Check out this research note from Bai Hoang at UT Arlington and Andrea Benjamin of U Oklahoma. In this thoughtful empirical study, the authors ask, "to what extent might local governments have reduced their police budgets in the aftermath of the [George Floyd] protests? What other factors might help us understand how city councils responded to requests to defund the police?

Read more on our website!

“Defund” or “Refund” the Police? — Urban Affairs Review In June of 2020, like many of you, we watched as George Floyd died at the hands of the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. We also watched as countless residents of cities took to the streets to protest this injustice. At the same time, the coronavirus pandemic meant that most city council mee

New on the blog! This article by Zachary Small and Jennifer Minner draws on interviews with land bank leaders in New York state to investigate how land banks can better serve social justice and equity goals. Read more here:

Do Land Banks Mean Progress Toward Socially Equitable Urban Development? — Urban Affairs Review Within the US, land banks have become a popular model to transform vacant and abandoned sites into productive properties in cities facing population decline. Land banks wield significant powers, assembling land and disposing of property. Local governments have viewed land banks as an improvement to

Check out our latest contribution to the UAR blog by collaborators Brittany Davis, Kirk Foster, Ronald Pitner, Nikki Wooten, and Mary Ohmer:

Innovating Methodologies for Examining Gentrification-Induced Social and Cultural Displacement — Urban Affairs Review Community stakeholders have sought to mitigate the impacts of gentrification, particularly among communities of color. Community-engaged, action-oriented research holds promise for developing interventions. Specifically, this research approach helps to center the voices of those most impacted and en

As the smoke from Canada's wildfires travels across the Northeastern US, it's impossible to ignore the disparate impact of climate change on marginalized groups. In the latest UAR article, Michelle Zuñiga and Michael Méndez investigate CA's approach to EJ.
CA's Senate Bill 1000 "calls for local jurisdictions with disadvantaged communities to include EJ considerations in their general land use plans." After its implementation in 2018, the authors take stock of the policy's effects.
Read more about their research on our website:

The Emergence of Environmental Justice in General Plans — Urban Affairs Review Urban planning has an uneasy relationship with environmental justice. Poor planning decisions and discriminatory practices have historically heightened the burdens of environmental contamination in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, in comparison to white, wealthy populations. Since

New on the blog! We're thrilled to introduce Shervin, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto. His research explores how dynamics of global migration intersect with community engagement, local politics, and urban planning processes. Read more about his background and work on our website:
https://www.urbanaffairsreview.com/uar-archive/student-spotlight-shervin-ghaem-maghami

Meet Mia Mariotti! A Master's student in the Urban Strategy Program at Drexel University, Mia is studying the modern homesteading movement and practice-based linkages to Indigenous values of land stewardship and community. Read more about Mia's research on our website, urbanaffairsreview.com/uar-archive/student-spotlight-mia-mariotti

New on the blog! By Josh Drucker and Carla Kayanan:

Innovation Districts — Urban Affairs Review Innovation districts have gained attention as a fast-spreading urban economic development strategy, raising numerous questions. What are their distinguishing attributes? Are they a substantive policy innovation? Are they likely to succeed in fostering innovation and economic dynamism? Innovation dis