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New Books in Urban Studies

New Books in Urban Studies

By: New Books Network
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 Interviews with scholars of urban studies about their new booksNew Books Network Art Literary History & Criticism Science Social Sciences World
Episodes
  • Sarah Kenny, "Growing Up and Going Out: Youth Culture, Commerce, and Leisure Space in Post-War Britain" (Manchester UP, 2025)

    Sarah Kenny, "Growing Up and Going Out: Youth Culture, Commerce, and Leisure Space in Post-War Britain" (Manchester UP, 2025)
    Jun 29 2025
    Sarah Kenny Growing up and going out: Youth culture, commerce and leisure space in post-war Britain Manchester University Press 2025 How did young people spend their time in the post-war era? In Growing up and going out: Youth culture, commerce and leisure space in post-war Britain Sarah Kenny, a lecturer in Modern History at the University of Birmingham, explores changing spaces and places of young people’s leisure. The book uses the case study of Sheffield, a city in the North of England that has often been overlooked in histories of youth culture, to examine how young people’s leisure was provided, commodified, and regulated. At the same time, the book has powerful stories of young people’s experiences, challenging perceptions of attitudes and activities, as well as subcultures and styles. A fascinating history, as well as an agenda setting analysis, the book should be widely read across the humanities and social sciences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    44 mins
  • Stacy Horn, "Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York" (Algonquin Books, 2019)

    Stacy Horn, "Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York" (Algonquin Books, 2019)
    Jun 27 2025
    Conceived as the most modern, humane incarceration facility the world had ever seen, New York's Blackwell's Island, site of a lunatic asylum, two prisons, an almshouse, and a number of hospitals, quickly became, in the words of a visiting Charles Dickens, "a lounging, listless madhouse." Digging through city records, newspaper articles, and archival reports, Stacy Horn tells a gripping narrative through the voices of the island's inhabitants. We also hear from the era's officials, reformers, and journalists, including the celebrated undercover reporter Nellie Bly. And we follow the extraordinary Reverend William Glenney French as he ministers to Blackwell's residents, battles the bureaucratic mazes of the Department of Correction and a corrupt City Hall, testifies at salacious trials, and in his diary wonders about man's inhumanity to his fellow man. Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad and Criminal in 19th Century New York (Algonquin Books, 2019) shows how far we've come in caring for the least fortunate among us--and reminds us how much work still remains. Stacy Horn shows that in setting up institutions for the humane treatment of social outcasts, New York City was so quickly overwhelmed by the sheer numbers confined to the Insane Asylum, Workhouse, Almshouse, Penitentiary and Hospital, that what emerged was a veritable gulag on Blackwell’s (now Roosevelt) Island. Based on a careful reading of both remarkably candid official documents detailing widespread suffering and accounts by the intrepid undercover reporter Nellie Bly and the socially prominent Josephine Shaw Lowell, we come to appreciate the long shadow of history cast over the city’s remaining island of the damned—Rikers. James Wunsch is Emeritus Professor of Historical and Educational Studies at SUNY Empire State. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    34 mins
  • Howard A. Husock, "The Projects: A New History of Public Housing" (NYU Press, 2025)

    Howard A. Husock, "The Projects: A New History of Public Housing" (NYU Press, 2025)
    Jun 18 2025
    How housing policy failed the people it was designed to help -- and how to fix it As the US struggles to provide affordable housing, millions of Americans live in deteriorating public housing projects, enduring the mistakes of past housing policy. In The Projects: A New History of Public Housing (NYU Press, 2025), Howard A. Husock explains how we got here, detailing the tragic rise and fall of public housing and the pitfalls of other subsidy programs. He takes us inside a progressive movement led by a group of New York City philanthropists, politicians, and business magnates who first championed public housing as a solution to urban blight. From First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to the controversial city planner Robert Moses, many well-known historical figures made a convincing case for affordable housing in America. Despite the movement's lofty ideals, the creation of the Projects led to the destruction of low-income communities across the country. From the Hill District in Pittsburgh to Black Bottom in Detroit, predominantly Black neighborhoods were judged only by the quality of their housing. Husock looks beyond these neighborhoods' physical conditions to their uncounted riches, from local artists like August Wilson to vital community institutions. As he shares residents' stories, he honors what they crafted through their own plans, rather than those of city planners. Husock traces the history of public housing to contemporary debates on the government's role in the housing market. Through interviews with residents, he reveals how public housing transformed the lives of Americans and the physical faces of cities and towns. He ultimately critiques "repair and reform" efforts, making policy recommendations that address the core failings of public housing for the people it was once designed to help. Mapping out a better path for policy-makers, he lays a new foundation for upward mobility in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    40 mins

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