Nathaniel Popkin

Essays Archive

2009

December

The Future Is Now

October

Living in a Box

September

A Penn State of Mind

Journey to Recover the Future

July

On the Fourth, on the fifth, or Days in Torino

June

Awash in Voices

May

The Vital Thread of Tom Sugrue

March

Piecing Piers

Surely You Jest

Review of The City's End

February

(Sky) Lines and Memories

You Workin'?

Flash of Hope

January

The Cradle Will Rock

Burning The Village May Not Save Us; Reviews of Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City and The Angel of Grozny: Orphans of a Forgotten War

Slow Moving, City Alive

2008

December

Valuable Tokens

Ready to Go

Death and Resurrection

November

Of Weights and Visions

Fables of Reconstruction

Step into the Street

October

What's Your Function?

September

Review of Vanished Gardens: Finding Nature in Philadelphia

The Opposite of Decline

"To See Something Greater"

Dwindling/Rekindling

Nica Dreams

Who's Coming?

My Bridge

August

Which Direction is It?

Nica-life

July

Sounds of These Streets

Killer Infrastructure

June

The Mother of Invention

A Pennsylvania Spy in Tunis

Bosphorous Dreams

May

Slam Bunting

April

"This is not pie-in-the-sky"

Breed the Rich

Non-Performance Clause

Anniversaries

Recess/Re-assess

March

Saving Race

One City Art Movement, Open to Everyone

February

Strait Talk

Too late for the streetscape?

"It really could be something."

Pierced Dreams

Review of Our Savage Neighbors

January

Popkin on Progress

Estuary of Dreams

More than shelter

Nature's balance

I walked in it was gray, walked out it was May

The Outlook

2007

December

Review of Coltrane: story of a sound

Light 'em if you've got 'em

Snake Uprising

A junction that ought to be

November

Review of Flow: The life and times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River

Riverside's Loss

Around the Mulberry Tree we go

October

Wondering about wandering

Private Lies

On Lubert Plaza

No other way

On Herbert Muschamp

September

Unfare Play

Review of Forgotten Philadelphia

Here is the Possible City

Fire? What Fire?

The circle forms and breaks again

We live on the road

August

Use it for the common good

Review of Walking Broad

The Question We'll Have to Answer

July

Out among the ruins

Careful! No Diving

June

Short Review of Flow

Saints in the Secular City

Packer Avenue Marine Terminal

Dela-Where?

May

Four courses of brick

We have our victory yet

Some Token Praise

Human Genome: S

April

How Things Change

The Hungry City

The First Hollywood

March

A Whole Lot of Meaning and Nothing to Do

The Wizard of Swampoodle

February

The Dark Winter is Ending

Squadrone Volante

Happy Valentines Day With Love, The National Park Service

January

Murmurs of Democracy at Independence Hall

Juggling and sipping … at City Hall?

The People’s Court(yard)

Love Us Back

Opportunity

Mummers Parade—it’s pure Philadelphia

2006

July

Can We Take the Heat?

Washington Avenue

June

More Than Intimacy

2005

September

Wanderlost

2004

December

Free Ride