Benjamin Looker
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Benjamin Looker is an associate professor of American Studies at Saint Louis University, and author of the book A Nation of Neighborhoods: Imagining Cities, Communities, and Democracy in Postwar America (University of Chicago Press).

Back in the Reagan era, Republicans made “neighborhood” a key component of their political vocabulary. But in Trump’s bizarrely dystopian rendering of cities, meaningful place-based ties either don’t exist or don’t matter. Democrats can take the term back, making it the centerpiece of a fresh progressive vision.