The Grass Is Greener
Every game of golf in New York City comes at a cost.
20581 Article(s) by: Benjamin Case
Benjamin Case is a researcher, educator, and organizer living in Pittsburgh.
Lost Art
The Geneva Freeport is home to millions of masterpieces you and I will never see. lost-art
A Planet of Slums?
Mike Davis may still be right that slums will dominate the cities of the future — but his prediction was at least a decade premature.
The Mayor of Mexico
Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s amazing success as president had a lot to do with his time as mayor.
Fascism Destroyed Italy’s Socialist City Halls
After World War I, Italian Socialists built an impressive array of welfare programs, schools, and libraries in cities. Fascist backlash soon revealed the limits of their strength.
Tawfiq Zayyad: Poet, Communist, Mayor
Under the leadership of poet and activist Tawfiq Zayyad, Nazareth emerged in the 1970s as a hub of anti-Zionist resistance.
The Pharaoh’s Curse
Egypt’s authoritarian president has recreated Cairo in his image, bulldozing ancient tombs, working-class neighborhoods, and the city’s already scarce green space.
The System That Survived Apartheid
South Africa’s townships were built to enforce white supremacy. Three decades into democracy, they remain the foundation of a racialized capitalism that governs through scarcity and patronage.
Modi’s Hindutva Theme Parks
India has launched major schemes of urban transformation in cities like Ayodhya. Behind the rhetoric of modernity lurks a crude religious chauvinism.
No War but Artisanal Doughnut War
Boutique storefronts, gourmet shops, and bike lanes are not the reason urban housing is unaffordable.
Free Reign
Eric Adams’s alleged record as Brooklyn borough president and mayor of New York City would be tough for anyone to top.
Urban Legends
Politicians and thought leaders have spent decades demonizing American cities. urban-legends
Zohran Mamdani Is Right on Public Safety
On crime, just as on other issues, Zohran Mamdani is leading the Left out of dead-end sloganeering and toward progressive governance.
Indulgences
Jacobin Finally Gets the Key to the City
Now Who’s the Boss?
When and where organized labor’s been on the move.
When Unions Built Social Housing
Throughout the mid-20th century, immigrant associations and labor unions bought and built thousands of co-ops to house working-class New Yorkers. A left-led co-op revival might provide a way out of our present-day urban housing crisis.