Politics / Policy: Places: Design Observer

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Politics / Policy

02.14.12: Jonathan Massey

Housing and the 99 Percent
On Places, Jonathan Massey traces a history of American home ownership, from the boosterism of the 1920s to postwar suburbia to the housing bubble to current foreclosure crisis.
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01.23.12: Austin Troy

Thirsty City
On Places, Austin Troy assesses the massive infrastructure required to bring water to the arid American West — and the huge amount of energy that makes it possible to take a shower in Los Angeles.
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12.08.11: Reinhold Martin

Occupy: The Day After
On Places, Reinhold Martin explores how Occupy Wall Street might challenge the structural inequities of finance capitalism, and how architects and urbanists can contribute to the next phase of the movement
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11.17.11: Lisa Findley & Liz Ogbu

South Africa: From Township to Town
On Places, Lisa Findley and Liz Ogbu describe the ongoing struggle to transform the once segrated black townships of South Africa into diverse and thriving towns.
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11.14.11: Robert E. Lang & Arthur C. Nelson

Megapolitan America
On Places, planners Robert Lang and Arthur Nelson argue that the United States can now be understood in terms of a new geography of large and powerful "megapolitan" regions.
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11.07.11: Reinhold Martin

Occupy: What Architecture Can Do
On Places, Reinhold Martin explores the role of architecture in the Occupy Wall Street movement — and in the larger challenges of constructing a better and more equitable society.
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09.14.11: Aron Chang

Beyond Foreclosure: The Future of Suburban Housing
On Places, Aron Chang argues that the foreclosure crisis highlights the need to transform suburban housing — to make it responsive not to dated demographics and wishful economics but to the actual needs of a diversifying and dynamic population.
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06.23.11: Kian Goh

Queer Beacon
On Places, architect Kian Goh explores LGBT public spaces in contemporary New York, where activism confronts gentrification.
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03.21.11: Kristi Dykema Cheramie

The Scale of Nature: Modeling the Mississippi River
On Places, Kristi Dykema Cheramie explores the ruins of the abandoned Mississippi River Basin Model and ponders the decades-long battle to control the great river.

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03.14.11: Mimi Zeiger

The Interventionist's Toolkit, Part 2: Posters, Pamphlets and Guides
On Places, in the second of her series on The Interventionist's Toolkit, Mimi Zeiger reports on the ingenious use of print media to spur urban activism — and even revolution.
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02.27.11: Mohamed Elshahed

Tahrir Square: Social Media, Public Space
On Places, Mohamed Elshahed argues that the physical occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo was just as vital as online social media to the early success of the January 25 Revolution.
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12.15.10: Jon Calame

The Roma of Rome: Heirs to the Ghetto System
On Places, historic preservationist Jon Calame documents, in words and images, the state-sponsored enclaves — or ghettos — that house the Roma, or Gypsies, of Rome.
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11.23.10: Jason Reblando

New Deal Utopias
On Places, photographer Jason Reblando documents the Greenbelt Towns created by the New Deal of the 1930s — an earlier era's response to tough times.
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11.18.10: Barbara Penner

Flush with Inequality: Sanitation in South Africa
On Places, just in time for World Toilet Day 2010, Barbara Penner explores the complex political, social and environmental meanings of sanitation in post-apartheid South Africa.
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11.15.10: Thomas Fisher

Frederick Law Olmsted and the Campaign for Public Health
On Places, Tom Fisher explores a forgotten chapter in the illustrious career of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted: his brief but exemplary period as head of the U.S. Sanitary Commission.
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02.12.10: Thomas Fisher

How Haiti Could Change Design
How might the Haiti earthquake change design practice? On Places, Thomas Fisher argues that designers need to develop practices that not only respond to crises that have happened but also proactively intervene in disaster-prone areas, with the goal of limiting damage in the future.
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02.04.10: Timothy Mennel

Working for the People
Completing his doctorate in geography, Timothy Mennel produced not a typical dissertation but Everything Must Go: A Novel of Robert Moses's New York. On Places, read an excerpt, in which Moses and Frank Lloyd Wright take a drive through Harlem and the Bronx.
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09.09.09: Jonathan Massey

Five Ways to Change the World
Architect and educator Jonathan Massey suggests five ways to influence the built environment — and make the world a better place.
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