Francine S. Romero, professor of public administration at the University of Texas at San Antonio, will discuss her recent book Not for Sale: Kelo v. New London and the Modern Debate over Eminent Domain (2026). Through legal scholarship and first-hand accounts, the author reexamines one of the most notorious chapters in New London history, showing how the city became the site and symbol for a national property rights movement at the turn of the millennium.
FREE.
Join us for the launch of a revised and expanded edition of Mapping Urban Renewal in New London, 1941-1975, a digital publication chronicling a tumultuous time in the history of New London when 104 acres downtown were cleared and redeveloped under the Winthrop Urban Renewal Project. The revised website includes new historical photographs, new narratives based on resident recollections, and an interactive map of the demolished neighborhoods–a collaboration with Bill Morse, author of Lost New London (2026).
FREE.
Michael Glass, associate professor of history at Boston College, will discuss his award-winning book Cracked Foundations: Debt and Inequality in Suburban America (2025), which examines how home mortgages and municipal bonds built suburbs in the decades after World War II while also making suburban life financially fragile and deeply unequal.
FREE.
The symposium will feature presentations by outstanding graduate and advanced undergraduate students from programs across New England in the history, theory, and criticism of architecture, art history, urban studies, historic preservation, and related fields. This year’s event is broadly themed around housing. Full schedule of speakers and topics to be announced.
FREE.
Andrei Harwell, executive director of the Yale Urban Design Workshop and the 2025-26 Krane Art History Scholar-in-Residence, will introduce the New London Building Dossiers project, a collaboration with Connecticut College students.
Beryl Satter, professor emerita of history at Rutgers University, previews her forthcoming book Cash on the Block: The Broken Promise of Reinvestment in Black Urban Neighborhoods (May 2026).
There has been a surge in tenant organizing in New London and surrounding towns in recent months. In this panel discussion, tenant union leaders address causes of recent rental housing problems in the area, as well as their experiences with community organizing.
Using historical and present-day examples, Adolph Reed, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, outlines the political forces that shaped today's housing system and what change could look like moving forward. Introduced by Daniel Moak, Associate Professor of Government and author of From the New Deal to the War on Schools: Race, Inequality, and the Rise of the Punitive Education State (2022).
Connecticut House and Senate legislators will discuss the issues and debates leading to the passage of CT House Bill 8002 in November 2025, a comprehensive effort to encourage the construction of more homes in communities across Connecticut.