City Journal

City Journal was founded in 1990 by William M. H. Hammett, who served as the head of the conservative Manhattan Institute.[2]^: 349 Hammett positioned City Journal as a more moderate and more cosmopolitan alternative to established right-wing institutions.[2]^: 349 The magazine initially published articles promoting privatization, fiscal discipline, government downsizing, and educational vouchers.[2]^: 349 Other New York-related topics covered in the magazine included criticisms of open admissions at CUNY, and the promotion of broken-windows policing.[2]^{: 349–350}

The magazine is published by the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research[1][10] a national free-market think tank based in New York City. It was edited by Peter Salins and then Fred Siegel in the early 1990s. Myron Magnet, its editor from 1994 to 2006, is now editor-at-large. City Journal's current editor is Brian C. Anderson, who was appointed in late 2006 after serving as senior editor for 10 years.[10] The journal's contributors include experts such as Senior Fellow Heather Mac Donald, Edward Glaeser, Steven Malanga, Nicole Gelinas, Kay Hymowitz, John Tierney, and Joel Kotkin. Although City Journal is based in New York City, its scope is national and often international, through the contributions of writers including Theodore Dalrymple from Britain, Claire Berlinski and Guy Sorman from France, and Bruce Bawer in Norway.

The magazine was also notable as one of the first to link to blogs on its website that referenced it, and to engage directly with the blogosphere. City Journal has published several special issues, beginning in autumn 2009.[11] Subsequently, City Journal has put out special issues in autumn 2013,[12] summer 2016,[13] and spring 2017.[14] The 2009 and 2013 special issues were focused on policy agendas for New York State and City. In 2016, City Journal published a special issue on the state of Texas, called "Texas Rising",[13] and in 2017, City Journal considered the future of work and labor in an increasingly automated world, in an issue titled "The Shape of Work to Come".[14]

All articles from the print magazine are eventually published online at City Journal's website, which also publishes original content (not from the magazine) daily, Mondays through Fridays. The first piece of new content for each week gets posted Sunday afternoon or evening. Original web pieces are generally shorter than the features in the print magazine, being typically about the length of an op-ed. They cover everything from public-policy issues and political developments to economics and popular culture.

Additionally, the website hosts City Journal's weekly podcast, 10 Blocks, which launched in February 2016.[15][16][17] 10 Blocks features discussions on urban policy and culture with host Brian C. Anderson and City Journal editors, contributors, and special guests.[15] Episodes cover topics such as: predictive policing; the Bronx renaissance; reform of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; homelessness in Portland, Oregon.

Much of the reception of City Journal over the years has been divided along political lines.

The magazine has received praise from the political right: the editorial board of the conservative New York Post described it as "the magazine that helped save New York City";[6] conservative commentator Jay Nordlinger, writing in National Review, called City Journal "a beacon of civilization".[5] In 2016, City Journal ranked second in The Global Grid's "Top 20 Urban Planning Websites",[15] and again made the list in 2017, ranked fourth.[16]

Alice O'Connor, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has written that City Journal is "hardly a model of ideological moderation", and that its contributors are "enmeshed in 1960s- and 1970s-era urbanology".[2]^: 349 She has criticized multiple writers for City Journal for reviving a "relentlessly negative image of black cultural pathology to call for tougher measures to crack down on out-of-wedlock births", following articles praising Daniel P. Moynihan's The Negro Family: The Case For National Action.[2]^: 349 Conservative author Sol Stern, a major contributor for the magazine since its inception,[2]^: 349 published a piece in liberal journal Democracy in 2020, accusing City Journal of removing contributors' editorial independence, and criticized the association of magazine trustee Rebekah Mercer with the alt-right outlet Breitbart.[18]

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