Welcome to Items and Issues, the relaunched monthly newsletter from the Social Science Research Council. Since 1947, Items has served as a platform for sharing SSRC’s work and fostering broader conversations about the social sciences. This newsletter continues that tradition, offering a curated selection of social science reading drawn from Council platforms and the wider field. Each month, we’ll resurface legacy pieces from Items, spotlight SSRC fellows and their work, and highlight notable new scholarship.
This month’s theme is Urbanism and Infrastructure, focusing on how people interact with the built environment and how city infrastructure can best serve public needs. With new leadership entering City Hall across the country this month, questions central to the social sciences—policy, power, political struggle, social history, and design—remain vitally important in understanding our urban future. This theme also connects to new program work at SSRC: our Tax Policy Network examines how tax policy shapes urban development, infrastructure financing, and municipal governance, and next month we’ll introduce the BUILD Network (Better Urbanism, Infrastructure and Land-Use Decision Making), bringing together scholars and practitioners to improve decision-making around the built environment.
