Why Substack?
A note to our new readers
For 35 years, City Journal has been the nation’s premier urban-policy magazine. London’s Daily Telegraph once labelled us “the Bible of the new urbanism”; The Public Interest called us “the magazine that saved the city.” From the Great Crime Decline to 9/11 to the “fiery but mostly peaceful” protests of 2020, City Journal has been a clarion voice for the idea that our cities matter, and that they deserve better.
Today’s cities face innumerable challenges: crime and disorder, soaring costs of living, the rise of remote work, the specter of insolvency, and America’s ever-more-turbulent politics. These challenges are part of a lively and important conversation, one which City Journal has always prided itself on being part of—and sometimes the center of.
That conversation, moreover, is not just happening in coffee shops or living rooms. It’s happening online, on social media and, increasingly, right here on Substack. That’s why we at City Journal decided the time was right to bring our ideas here. We think Substack is where the debate is happening, and we want to be part of it.
Don’t worry—our main website and magazine aren’t going anywhere. But we will also be here, with original material for all our subscribers.
Each week, City Journal’s Substack will offer subscribers four new pieces from some of our favorite contributors. Subscribe, and you can expect:
Monday: A run-down of the social-science research you need to know about.
Tuesday: A weekly dose of economic policy, with a focus on affordability, growth, and making our cities thrive.
Wednesday: A regular column on urban policy and culture, covering crime, culture, and everything else that makes our cities run—or not.
Thursday: Our weekly politics column, telling you everything you need to know about the political currents in our cities and our nation.
In addition, subscribers should expect regular “best of” content from our home website, city-journal.org, as well as content from CJ’s 35 years of archives. We hope to bring you more soon, including other CJ contributors and even special sneak previews of City Journal’s quarterly magazine.
In the meantime, if you want more CJ in your inbox, let me encourage you to subscribe below, and to check out our other offerings, online and in print.
– Charles Fain Lehman, senior editor, City Journal
Want more CJ? Check us out our main site or consider becoming a subscriber today.