Blue City Blues

Elizabeth Glazer on How Left Progressive Blue Cities Should Tackle Public Safety

If you are in Seattle join us for a live joint taping of the Blue City Blues & GeekWire Podcasts: Two Cities, One Industry: Big Tech, Power and Politics in Seattle and Sa

Why Does Joe Trippi Say Democrats’ Divisions Won’t Stop Them from Sweeping the Midterms?

Democratic political consultant Joe Trippi came to national prominence in 2003, as the mastermind behind then-Vermont Governor Howard Dean’s internet-fueled insurgent bid

Emily Dufton on the Maddening History of Our Broken System for Treating Opioid Addiction

Elected on a law-and-order platform, Richard Nixon launched the War on Drugs with a June 1971 press conference in which he declared drug abuse on the streets of American

Chris Cillizza on the Media's - and the Democrats'? - Parasitic Relationship with Trump

For nearly two decades, Chris Cillizza was a star political commentator for legacy media. In 2005 Chris founded The Fix, the seminal, must read Washington Post political

Michael Powell Pt. 2: "The Cities That Said Yes to Drugs"

Atlantic staff writer Michael Powell, our guest on the last BCB episode where we discussed NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the rise of anti-Zionism on the left, rejoins us f

Michael Powell on Mamdani, Anti-Zionism, and the New Socialism

In 2020, at the height of peak woke, then-New York Times sports columnist Michael Powell decided to make a career zag, abandoning sports to begin covering what he calls t

Is the DSA a Threat to the Democratic Party (with Jake Altman)?

All of a sudden, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) seem to be a potent force within American politics, winning high profile mayoral and congressional races in bl

Jonathan Weber on the Good, the Bad and the Ugly about How Tech Remade San Francisco

In 1990, at the dawn of the internet age, reporter Jonathan Weber was tapped as the LA Times’ first Silicon Valley correspondent. Taking up a perch in San Francisco, wher

Jamie Paul on the Memory-Holing of the Excesses of Woke

Jamie Paul, a former managing editor of Queer Majority and a contributing editor at Bi.org, is the founding editor of the American Dreaming on Substack, where (among his

Maia Szalavitz Makes the Case for Harm Reduction Policies in Blue Cities

Maia Szalavitz, a prominent neuroscience journalist and progressive drug reform champion who has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Salon a

Mike Madrid on the Establishment vs. Populist Throwdown in the LA Mayor’s Race

What just happened in the Los Angeles mayoral primary, and why didn't former reality tv star and social media darling Spencer Pratt live up to the incessant, breathl

Sherman Alexie: An Ode to the White Urban Working Class

These days we associate the white working class with rural and small town red America, whereas big blue cities are perceived largely as the playgrounds of the educated an

Nancy Rommelmann on How Portland Traumatized Itself

In recent decades, no major American city can match the sharp ups and downs of Portland, Oregon. From a poor but pretty backwater burg of white gearheads and provincials

The Death of the Gatekeeper: Adam Penenberg on Traditional Journalism's Identity Crisis

For decades, a handful of legacy media outlets decided what counted as news, how to frame it, and who got to report it. Now trust has collapsed, The New York Times is sel

John Roderick on the Decline – and Comeback? – of Urban Cool

What's the fundamental difference between an authentically cool city and a contrived, gentrified one? What makes a great music and arts scene, and can deliberate gov

Preview: Why Is David Rieff a Cultural Pessimist about Blue America?

This is a free preview of our latest Patreon-only episode of Blue City Blues, with writer David Rieff, a war correspondent, an essayist, and a leading cultural critic. Da

Democracy Dies in Ineffectiveness with Richard Pildes

Is a return to good, effective governance not just a glaring need in blue cities but a key to saving liberal democracy? NYU law professor Richard “Rick” Pildes is the aut

In Praise of “Solid B" Cities with Halina Bennet

There are the superstar cities that act as the seedbeds of American cultural cosmopolitanism and the great engines of blue America's knowledge economy: New York, San

Three Blue City Mayors Innovating on Drug Policy with Keith Humphreys

Keith Humphreys, a friend of the pod, is widely recognized as the country’s leading expert on drug and addiction policy. The Esther Ting Memorial Professor in the Departm

Do Public Sector Unions Wield Too Much Power in Blue Cities?

In late February, Nicholas Bagley and Robert Gordon, who have both had extensive careers in Democratic governance – Nicholas was Chief Legal Counsel for Michigan Gov. Gre