John Stehlin

AAG 2026 Call for Papers/Panelists: Urban Politics from Bidenomics to MAGA Urbanism Sponsored by the Urban Geography Specialty Group With the return of Donald Trump to the presidency, there is broad agreement that U.S. political culture is at a crisis point (Bouie 2025; Viala-Gaudefroy 2025). Since January 2025, the Trump Administration, an unusual assemblage of impresarios, hustlers, influencers, and hard-core ideologues, has deployed a chaotic program to remake American government and society in the image of authoritarian nationalism across the realms of foreign policy, immigration, trade, social policy, media, and energy (Townley 2025). In short, key figures in the administration have called for “repealing the 20th century,” and more proximately, key policy legacies of the Obama and Biden administrations (Davies 2025). Most recently, the administration has focused its attention on “crime” in “blue” cities and states, sending ICE agents and National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Portland in a show of force against its political enemies (Ward and Fertig 2025; Wong 2025). While most commentary on the Trump administration focuses on the transformation of the federal government, the changes underway are also profoundly urban (Wyly 2025). This session will explore the urban dimensions of the Biden-Trump transition across a range of domains. We invite paper abstracts and panelists discussing any of the following topics and beyond:

- Urban policy under the Biden and Trump administrations - Changing city, state, and federal interactions (conflict, cooperation, etc.) - Implications of legislative changes (IIJA, IRA, BBB, etc.) for cities - Specific sectoral dimensions (energy, housing, climate, social policy, etc.) - Urban voting patterns, gerrymandering, and partisanship - Urban militarization, policing, political violence, and spectacle - “Sanctuary cities,” immigration, and xenophobia - Interrelated housing, housing affordability, and homeowners' insurance crises - Urbanism, suburbanization, and transportation investment - Nativism, racism, natalism, and cities - Energy, petronationalism, and urban climate response - Urban discourses across legacy media, social media, and administration figures - Tech, venture capital, AI, and cities - Structural and conjunctural dimensions of each administration in the longue duree We anticipate at least one paper session and one more open-ended panel session based on this theme, depending on interest. Please submit paper abstracts or expressions of interest in panel participation (including topics of interest) to John Stehlin (jgstehli@uncg.edu) and Alan Wiig (alanwiig@ufl.edu) by 6:00 PM EDT (GMT -5:00) on Friday, October 24.

AAG 2026 Call for Papers/Panelists: "Urban Politics from Bidenomics to MAGA Urbanism" organized by myself and @alanwiig.bsky.social. Please send abstracts and/or expressions of panel interest to us by October 24, and share widely!

Debt by Data Predatory lending with a high-tech sheen.

"A myopic emphasis on individual privacy also obscures how companies like Argyle impact collective action."

Stellar piece from Eliza McCullough (elizamccullough.com) in Lux that shows what data indebtedness actually means for individuals and organizers.

lux-magazine.com/lux-for-life...

“please clap”

Bar associations need to start disbarring. There's immediate precedent with Giuliani. To the point @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social has repeatedly made, a polity that allows elites to repeatedly lie, obviously and with impunity, is not sustainable. Feels like the legal profession is at the same juncture.

these people are monarchists not because they believe kings are virtuous but because a monarch is typically an easily manipulated figurehead that provides cover for all manner of private violence and enrichment

“The president is being fed a steady diet of AI generated propaganda videos from his team so they can direct his energies and signatures towards their own goals” is a real and true statement about America in 2025

a friend of mine in antifa told me that antifa's headquarters is SHEIN and if the company fell the whole network would fall

Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Badly Needed

not surprising that the @nytimes.com didn’t include a comment section on this putrid garbage, and surely it’s just a coincidence that the author is the CEO of a private equity firm trying to take the University of Phoenix public and would financially benefit from destroying higher education

the administration is laser-focused on making sure Americans don't get clean energy, so Saudi Arabia (Trump's paymaster) has someone to sell their oil to in 10 years when the rest of the world has moved on to solar+batteries

All I want in life is to persuade everyone, when encountering politics & culture, to ask, "why are we talking about this?" I mean that very literally: anything you encounter on your screens reflects a choice. Someone covered that, talked about that, rather than the many other things out there. Why?

Bank of England warns AI stock bubble rivals 2000 dotcom peak Central bank says market concentration hasn’t been this extreme in 50 years.

We all think it's a bubble, but seeing that Bank of England says that "market concentration hasn't been this extreme in 50 years" is extremely alarming.

arstechnica.com/ai/2025/10/b...

The Altman School of Being Left Holding the Bag

Vulgar Latourianism With Eugenicist Characteristics

full blown, completely agree

I'm starting to think that COVID generalized the phenomenon of "car brain" to basically all realms of life. it's worst and most deadly on the roads, but everyone everywhere acts like they're in a private vehicle and whatever is in front of them is the enemy www.fastcompany.com/91330344/car...

as an after school special, it’s mid

If the regime does go after DSA, the appropriate response will be for as many people as possible to become dues-paying members.

It's the new highways through Black neighborhoods: Data centers

AAG 2026 CFP: Putting the ‘Con’ in Economic Geography AAG 2026 CFP: Schemes, Scams, and Flim-flam: Putting the ‘Con’ in Economic Geography Will B. Payne, Rutgers University Desiree Fields, University of California, Berkeley Jovan Scott Lewis, University ...

Along with Will Payne and Jovan Lewis, I'm organizing an AAG session on the economic geography of scams for the 2026 conference in San Francisco. Please share widely! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Probably not really what you’re after but could argue that the Scream series is about the horror genre itself being cursed and possessing people…

John Stuart Mill failed to consider that creepy loser men would not react well to other people's liberty.

Two years. I can't believe it. What a disgusting time. What a horrific time. We live in the age of monsters, and all we can hope for is to finally defeat some of them. Free palestine.

the Alien franchise hasn’t been this fun since the basketball scene in Alien: Resurrection

The history of Nazis holding rallies in left-wing areas of Weimar Germany, instigating street fights, and then telling the press that only they could save Germany from the "violent communists" seems like an important thing for people to be studying right now.

genuinely think that people in both parties are aiming to become The Only Party. the right wants to make it illegal to vote for a Democrat. the Democrats want to permanently expel the left and absorb enough of the right to make the GOP redundant. right now, the latter seems more far-fetched...

Grateful for the opportunity to share my thoughts with the BBC about the Trump administration's premeditated killings in the Caribbean.

"Absurd on a number of levels."

It'll never be lost on me that a particular subset of the liberal commentariat in both North America and Western Europe were deeply infatuated with this woman up until the very moment she decided to talk about that one issue you're still basically not allowed to talk about lol.

“viewpoint diversity” means hiring a bunch of cretins to balance out the people who can actually read

this is more awful then you think but also i'm basically fascinated by how so much of this is a social compact to essentially make it your childhood again

state after state could solve this college funding shakedown from the Trump administration by just agreeing to fund universities at the levels they did in the early 1990s.