Who we are
Metropolitics is an editorially peer-reviewed online journal that publishes concise academic essays and papers aimed at an international audience. The journal’s mission is public scholarship : short-form work about cities and urban politics, based on original research, on a time frame that allows researchers to contribute contemporaneously to public debate and make their scholarly work more relevant to a broad readership.
Metropolitics was established by, and works in collaboration with, Métropolitiques, a French-language peer-reviewed online journal based in Paris, France. With a network of corresponding editors around the world, Metropolitics and Métropolitiques provide spaces for analysis of and debate about social, cultural and economic politics in cities around the world. Because the journal is online, authors can illustrate their work with maps, photographs, videos and drawings.
Metropolitics is an open-access journal, which means that all content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the Budapest Open-Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access.
No fees are charged to publish an article in Metropolitics.
What we publish
● Essays (1,500 words), which draw on empirical work to develop arguments relating to societal and political debates, and which provide a new perspective on key urban issues and challenges.
● Debates (1,500 words), which relate to current social, professional or political developments on current issues, and concisely present the state of knowledge bearing on current public debate.
● Reports from the Field (1,500 words), which draw on case studies, experiments or remarkable situations to shed new light on urban phenomena and developments.
● Reviews (1,000 words), which offer authors’ perspectives on books, films, exhibitions and other events, evaluating their intellectual contributions for a wide audience.
● Interviews with activists and policymakers, presented in audio, video or text form.
Word counts exclude bibliographic references and footnotes.
Any article submitted in excess of 2,500 words will not be reviewed by the editorial board.
Access to Metropolitics is free. Articles can be downloaded as PDF files ; videos are available as podcasts.
To submit an article for consideration
Metropolitics publishes an original article every Tuesday, as well as occasional English translations of articles in French originating from the Métropolitiques site in Paris. The journal is editorially peer-reviewed : all submissions are reviewed by at least two members of the editorial committee. If two members agree to accept a piece, the paper is automatically accepted ; if the two original editors request the help of other committee members, they all must agree to reach a decision to publish. Articles may be published within as little as a month of submission, though the editorial process sometimes takes longer if a piece is adjudged to be in need of substantial revision. Our turnaround, however, is often substantially faster than academics have come to expect from standard peer-reviewed journals.
An editorial director oversees the editorial process with the support of the managing editor. For the 2024/2025 academic year, the editorial director is John Krinsky, and the managing editor is Jakob Kendall Schneider. Articles may be submitted directly to the managing editor by email (jakobks13 [at] gmail [dot] com) or by clicking on the “Submit a paper” button below.
Artificial intelligence (AI) policy statement
The editorial team of Metropolitics acknowledges the growing societal importance of artificial intelligence (AI) and the increase in AI-assisted writing. Authors should not submit manuscripts where generative AI tools have been used in ways that replace core researcher and author responsibilities—for example, text and data generation. Authors should properly document in the manuscript’s methods section any use of AI in the research process—for example, computer-assisted data analysis. Authors should not list AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author, nor cite AI as an author. The journal does permit AI-assisted copyediting to enhance the readability of human-generated text and to ensure that manuscripts are free of grammar and spelling errors. Authors remain accountable for the accuracy, originality, validity, and integrity of the content of their submissions.
