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Politics

How Civic Organizations Are Helping to Fight COVID-19

Nonprofits have proven to be critical links in the nation’s public health infrastructure, but even those with mandates unrelated to health and poverty relief are turning out to be integral to their communities’ survival.

Aaron Horvath, Jean Lin

Race

COVID-19 and the Color Line

Black Americans are dying of COVID-19 at much higher rates than whites, and nowhere more so than in St. Louis. This is the result of racist policies which collapsed the social safety net while setting blacks in the path of danger.

Colin Gordon, Walter Johnson, Jason Q. Purnell, Jamala Rogers

Class & Inequality

Should There Be a COVID-19 Rent Strike?

While the government and some banks have announced mortgage moratoriums, they have not insisted that rent relief be passed on to tenants. Many renters don’t know what they will do come April 1, let alone May 1.

Mordecai Lyon

Arts in Society

The Bird at the Window

Since 1970 North America has lost 29 percent of its bird population. New York City alone kills almost a quarter of a million birds each year. More than most people, poets have tried to respond to these unremarked—and mostly preventable—deaths.

Calista McRae

Politics

How Not to Do Activism

The calculus of power isn’t defined by hits or clicks or tweets. It is measured in relationships and meaningful reactions over time.

Michael Gecan

Arts in Society, Class & Inequality

Zero Hour: The First Days of New Berlin

30 years after the Wall, the story of Berlin's anarchist utopia.

Paul Hockenos

Race

The Revolutionary and the Historian

Harvard professor Walter Johnson and rapper Tef Poe reflect on their shared activism, and the place they see for allies—accomplices, even—in the long struggle for racial justice.

Walter Johnson, Tef Poe, Mordecai Lyon

Class & Inequality

Homes for Citizens

New York public housing is plagued with problems, but it possesses a democratic advantage that voucher systems lack: residents can hold the state accountable not only as tenants but as constituents.

Salonee Bhaman, Pedro A. Regalado

Reading Lists

Killing the Commons

A reading list on the privatization of public space.

Rosie Gillies, Boston Review

Science & Nature

The Sins of “Smart” Cities

What happens when we reframe complex social and political issues as technical puzzles? Two new books challenge modern cities' over-reliance on data and technology.

Ruth Miller

Arts in Society

Dystopia Is Everywhere

Hye-young Pyun’s surreal, violent novels reject stereotypes about Korean women’s writing, taking up global themes of environmental collapse and the loneliness of city life.

Jae Won Chung

Arts in Society

Was Architecture Better Under Socialism?

Yugoslavia produced a thrilling variety of buildings—frequently departing from the prefabricated monotony of the Eastern Bloc.

Anthony Paletta

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THINKING IN A PANDEMIC

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