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"Winter Scene in Brooklyn," 1820 painting by Francis Guy.

How Brooklyn’s Earliest Black Residents Found Empowerment and Solidarity in Their Diverse Community

The little known history of 19th-century New York City.
Black mother and son in front of their suburban house.

The Family Photographs That Helped Us Investigate How a University Displaced a Black Community

A longtime resident of Shoe Lane chronicled the life of his community as it was demolished by Christopher Newport University. His photographs helped a reporter seek accountability.
Girls reading "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn."

Betty Smith Enchanted a Generation of Readers with ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’

No other 20th-century American novel did quite so much to burnish Brooklyn’s reputation.
Photo collage of L.J. Davis, Jervis Anderson, and a street map

The Invention of a Neighborhood

In the early years of Brooklyn’s gentrification, a 1977 New Yorker piece by Jervis Anderson captured the process in a freeze-frame.
Artists on the roof of 3-5 Coenties Slip, New York, 1958. Photograph: Hans Namuth

Remembering the Slip: The Manhattan Street that Birthed a Generation of Artists

The tiny downtown passage, where artists burned pallets for warmth, was home to Ellsworth Kelly and Agnes Martin.
Side-by-side of LGBTQ+ pride flag above fetish shop, and local LGBTQ+ activist Roland Palencia

Searching For Silver Lake: The Radical Neighborhood That Changed Gay America

For decades, these Los Angeles streets have played host to key events in LGBTQ+ history. But gentrification has transformed the area.
A sex worker on Cass Avenue, Detroit, 1965.

Red Lights, Blue Lines

Three recent books examine the discrimination and hypocrisy at the heart of policing “vice.”
Mexican American men standing near a mural and a low rider car in Chicago in 1987.

The Past and Future of Mexican Chicago

From the machine politicians in La Villita to the radicals in Pilsen, Mexican Chicagoans have played a central role in defining their city. 
Dancing crowds and a DJ at the 2022 Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle, Washington

How the Block Party Became an Urban Phenomenon

“That spirit of community, which we all talk about as the roots of hip-hop, really originates in that block party concept.”
An Chang Ho, Kap Suk Cho and other workers at Riverside orange orchard, California USC Digital Library. Korean American Digital Archive.
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The First Koreatown

Pachappa Camp, the first Korean-organized immigrant settlement in the United States, was established through the efforts of Ahn Chang Ho.
People talking about a neighborhood map, from the cover of Claire Dunning's book "Nonprofit Neighborhoods."

Grantmaking as Governance

A new book examines how the US government funded the growth of — and delegated governance to — the nonprofit sector.
A woman tends to a lawn at the corner of Confederate Lane and Plantation Parkway in the Mosby Woods neighborhood of Fairfax on Wednesday. The city is considering changing several names in the Civil War-themed development, but neighbors are divided. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

A Civil War Among Neighbors Over Confederate-Themed Streets

Debates between neighbors escalate over the use of Confederate names within a Northern Virginia neighborhood.
Dancing at the spring festival at St. George in 1984.

'The World Was Ukrainian'

A stubborn and surprising immigrant enclave, hiding in plain sight on the Lower East Side.
Grid of black and white photos of various homes with different architectural styles.

Explore Milwaukee's History Through Its Many Home Styles

Interactive map shows Milwaukee’s housing patterns reflect not only aesthetic trends but also how historical events like immigration, war and civil rights shaped the city.
Anita Villarreal with a campaigning Richard J. Daley

The US Arrested Her—Then She Changed Chicago

In the 1960s, Chicago’s white neighborhoods didn’t want Mexican Americans moving in. But one determined real estate broker changed everything.
Screen capture of a Black man standing in an urban residential neighborhood, speaking in the documentary "Who Killed the Fourth Ward?"

How “Who Killed Fourth Ward?” Challenged the Nature of Documentary Filmmaking

James Blue’s film investigated the destruction of a Black neighborhood in Houston, but it is also a powerful self-interrogation.
Janet Robinson and Yolanda Grayson King inside Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church

In Virginia, a Historic Black Neighborhood Grapples With Whether to Grow

Some in The Settlement, founded by formerly enslaved people, say development should be allowed to create generational Black wealth while others disagree.

Redlining, Race, and the Color of Money

Long after the end of explicit discrimination in the housing market, the federal government continued to manage risk for capital, perpetuating inequality.
Map of Oberlin Village in Raleigh, NC.

Vanishing Neighborhoods

The fate of Raleigh's 11 missing freedman's villages.
Image of street corner in the Bronx, New York

Boroughed Time

Confronting a long tradition of projecting fantasies onto the South Bronx.

The Long Reinvention of the South Bronx

Peter L'Official on the Mythologies Behind Urban Renewal.

Racist Housing Practices From The 1930s Linked To Hotter Neighborhoods Today

A study of more than 100 cities shows neighborhoods subjected to discriminatory housing policies nearly a century ago are hotter today than other areas.

The Ladder Up

A restless history of Washington Heights.

Walking with the Ghosts of Black Los Angeles

"You can't disentangle blackness and California."

Capturing Black Bottom, a Detroit Neighborhood Lost to Urban Renewal

A new exhibit at the Detroit Public Library, displays old images of the historic African American neighborhood in its final days.
Aerial view of suburbs.
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To Understand What Could Happen on Election Day, Understand the Suburbs

Even as they've diversified, suburban politics have remained protectionist — often defying ideological categorization.
A drawing of a playground slide painted like a road.

What Adults Lost When Kids Stopped Playing in the Street

In many ways, a world built for cars has made life so much harder for grown-ups.
An oblique view of Columbus Circle taken on Jan. 7, 1924 by the Fairchild Aerial Camera Company.

A Portrait of New York City by Air in 1924

Long before Google Maps, an intrepid inventor with three camera-equipped biplanes captured a groundbreaking view of Gotham in its Jazz Age glory.
A man in uniform holding an honorable discharge certificate from the U.S. Air Force.

How The U.S. Military Built San Francisco's LBGTQ+ Legacy

Many LGBTQ+ veterans settled in the city as it was a common point of disembarkation and a place of gender nonconformity.
A rendering of Buckminster Fuller and June Jordan's “Skyrise for Harlem” project published in Esquire, April 1965.

Nowhere But Up

In the wake of the 1964 Harlem riots, June Jordan and Buckminster Fuller’s plan to redesign the neighborhood suggested new possibilities for urban life.

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