Places Journal

Extralibrary Loan: Making the Civic Infrastructure We Need Amid a war on public knowledge, libraries are pushing outward, enlarging the commons through new configurations of civic and creative life.

"The library is not meant to be a node in the just-in-time-economy that puts a rights-restricted copy of 'Abundance' in our AirPods. It’s meant to be an accessible portal to our government, the place we go to access shared knowledge and to make meaning with others."

— @shannonmattern.bsky.social

Along a Path of Impermanence A documentary photographer records some of the people and places being disrupted by an expansion of Interstate 35 through the center of Austin, Texas.

Back when I-35 first sliced through Austin, Texas, in the 1950s, no visual archive was kept of the people whom the highway displaced. Now, as TxDOT annexes properties along I-35 to expand the interstate, documentary photographer Liz Moskowitz records some of the people and businesses being upended.

Along a Path of Impermanence A documentary photographer records some of the people and places being disrupted by an expansion of Interstate 35 through the center of Austin, Texas.

Back when I-35 first sliced through Austin, Texas, in the 1950s, no visual archive was kept of the people whom the highway displaced. Now, as TxDOT annexes properties along I-35 to expand the interstate, documentary photographer Liz Moskowitz records some of the people and businesses being upended.

The Texas Department of Transportation is annexing properties along I-35 in Austin to make way for an expansion of the interstate. Here are some of the people and businesses being displaced: placesjournal.org/article/along-a-path-of-impermanence-highway-displacement-austin-texas/

Along a Path of Impermanence A documentary photographer records some of the people and places being disrupted by an expansion of Interstate 35 through the center of Austin, Texas.

When I-35 first sliced through Austin, Texas, homes and businesses in the path of construction were forced to relocate. No archive was kept of the lives that the highway upended.

As TxDOT now moves to expand the interstate, photographer Liz Moskowitz records the stories of people being displaced.

As part of our public ethos, Places articles are accessible to all, free of charge and free of advertising. Yet the work we do — of commissioning, editing & producing articles that are rigorous and trustworthy — isn’t free at all.

We hope you’ll consider donating to help sustain + grow the journal.

"In times of rapid change to a physical and cultural landscape, we become more aware of the historical weight of the present. I realized if I wanted to photograph these buildings and the people occupying them, I’d have to start immediately, before there was nothing left but rubble."

—Liz Moskowitz

Along a Path of Impermanence A documentary photographer records some of the people and places being disrupted by an expansion of Interstate 35 through the center of Austin, Texas.

The Texas Department of Transportation is annexing properties along I-35 in Austin to make way for an expansion of the interstate. Here are some of the people and businesses being displaced:

Support Places Journal this Giving Tuesday A message from the chair and vice-chair of our Board of Directors.

Places is a community of dedicated scholars, editors, photographers, academics & practitioners. But just as important, Places is a community of readers & supporters.

Your donation will help us sustain and grow the journal — we can't do it without you!

A message from our board this Giving Tuesday:

Donate $100 or $10/month (or more) and you can receive your very own set of mail-ready Places postcards, featuring select images from journal articles.

This is the first time Places has made postcards, and, as snail mail enthusiasts, we are very excited. Get yours while you can!

This year, Places has published dozens of articles about people and places across the world, on issues in architecture, landscape and urbanism, contextualized in their relationships to politics, history, infrastructure, media & more.

If you’ve appreciated our work, we hope you’ll consider donating:

“Whether in nostalgia for a nationalized rail service, or in dejection over an educational system tailored to the needs of industry over learning, there is a growing sadness that only monetary values can make headway in our culture, and that public goods cannot survive unless they make a profit.”

The Trouble with Consumption The contradictions between capitalist needs and ecological imperatives are impossible to ignore. How might the tenets of alternative hedonism foster new mandates for radical political change?

“To insist on the sensually impoverishing aspects of consumer culture is to speak for forms of happiness that people might be able to enjoy were they to opt for an alternative economic order. It is to open up a new political imaginary.”

This Black Friday, consider “alternative hedonism”:

✍️✉️📮

From: “Field Notes on Repair: 7,” November 2024 • Love Letter to Baltimore, by Scott Powers • Photograph by Brent Sturlaugson

From “Devoted forever to popular resort and recreation,” by Tyler Green, December 2017 • El Capitan, Yosemite, 1861 • Photograph by Carleton E. Watkins

From: “Why a Marsh,” by Daniel Wolff & Dorothy Peteet, May 2022 • Cordgrass, Spartina patens • Photograph by Dana Filippini

From: “Your Seawall Won’t Save You,” by Lizzie Yarina, March 2018 • Informal housing, Ho Chi Minh City • Photograph by Lizzie Yarina

From: “Black Builders,” by @elapostrophe.bsky.social, October 2024 • Detail of flyer from the Harlem Music Center, undated • Photograph by Peter L'Official

From: “Library as Infrastructure,” by @shannonmattern.bsky.social, June 2014 • Toyo Ito, Sendai Mediatheque • Photograph by Forgemind Archimedia

From: “Tending Building,” by Kiel Moe and Daniel S. Friedman, February 2024 • Salk Institute • Photograph by Leonid Furmansky

Places has postcards!

As a special thanks to readers who donate $100 or $10/month (or more) to sustain the journal, we’ll send you your very own set of postcards featuring select images from Places essays.

Available through the new year — or until we run out! Donate here: placesjournal.org/donate/

As an independent, nonprofit journal, Places can't continue to do what we do without your support. This fall, if you donate $100 or $10/month (or more), you'll receive your very own set of Places postcards, featuring select photographs from journal articles.

Donate today! placesjournal.org/donate/

A Year of Intrepid Public Scholarship in Places As an independent, nonprofit journal, we rely on your support to continue publishing trustworthy public scholarship on the built environment.

In a year marked by assaults on public institutions, universities, libraries, and independent journalism, Places has maintained our commitment to publishing trustworthy public scholarship on an independent platform, free of ads & free of charge.

We hope you'll consider donating to support our work!

November 2025 Newsletter: Sanctuary, Colony, Library, Democracy Recent essays in Places by journalist Caroline Tracey, human rights lawyer Julian Aguon, and contributing writers Shannon Mattern and Belmont Freeman.

ICYMI: @cetracey.bsky.social on the origins of the Sanctuary Movement; Julian Aguon, on cancer clusters in Guam caused by U.S. nuclear tests; @shannonmattern.bsky.social on the organizing force of libraries to sustain public knowledge; and Belmont Freeman, on Trump's attack on federal architecture.

At once reportage and public history, "A Theology of Smuggling" by @cetracey.bsky.social traces the work of activists & religious leaders in the 1980s to protect refugees at the U.S./Mexico border—direct action that galvanized the Sanctuary Movement.

A recommended read this week via @longreads.com.

At once reportage and public history, "A Theology of Smuggling" by @cetracey.bsky.social traces the work of activists & religious leaders in the 1980s to protect refugees at the U.S./Mexico border—direct action that galvanized the Sanctuary Movement.

A recommended read this week via @longreads.com.

Extralibrary Loan: Making the Civic Infrastructure We Need Amid a war on public knowledge, libraries are pushing outward, enlarging the commons through new configurations of civic and creative life.

I want to uplift again this brilliant piece of writing and thinking by @shannonmattern.bsky.social - placesjournal.org/article/extr... - I think that everyone who is interested in libraries would benefit from reading it.

A Theology of Smuggling In the early 1980s, in Tucson, activists and religious leaders joined forces to protect refugees at the U.S.-Mexico border. Their collaboration galvanized the Sanctuary Movement.

Today's article pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer @cetracey.bsky.social & @placesjournal.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

placesjournal.org/article/a-th...

“On one level, Trump’s executive order is preposterous, a jab at liberal elite taste and a sop to architectural fundamentalists with deep links to conservative networks driving the second-term agenda…Clearly, though, the order is less about aesthetics than power, and on this level, it is dangerous.”