NYU Urban Initiative co-director Thomas Sugrue has edited Crisis Cities, a public symposium on the 2020 crises and their impact on urban life, a partnership of the NYU Cities Collaborative and Public Books.
In his introduction to the series, Sugrue writes,
Just as COVID-19 is particularly dangerous to populations with preexisting conditions, the virus has ferociously swept through urban areas because of their preexisting social conditions: the precarity of work; the unaffordability of housing; the depth of racial, ethnic, and class divides; a profoundly unequal global economy; and the failure of many governments worldwide to rise to the challenges.
The series includes essays on Covid-19, on the pandemic, housing, and employment in Latino and African American communities, on social movements, policing, and urban uprisings, on urban democracy, and on the reconfiguration of urban spaces. Crisis cities brings together a diverse group of scholars worldwide, including NYU faculty members Sophie Gonick, Eric Klinenberg, and Julie Livingston, as well as Keenaga-Yamahtta Taylor, Yarimar Bonilla, Natalia Molina, Margaret O’Mara, Ananya Roy, Marcia Chatelain, Rodrigo Nunes, Xiaowei Wang, Adam Tooze, Simon Balto, Mustafa Dikeç, Camilo José Vergara, Quentin Ravelli, Warren Breckman, and Gautam Bhan.
The full series is available online here: https://www.publicbooks.org/series/crisis-cities/
Many of the contributors and other leading scholars will participate in an online conference on Crisis Cities to be held in January 2021, with the support of the NYU Urban Initiative, the NYU Cities Collaborative, and Public Books.
Racquel Forrester
Assistant Director, NYU Urban Initiative