Newspaper Op-Eds and Essays
“America’s War on Drugs Has Always Been Bipartisan–And Unwinnable,” TIME/Made By History (Dec. 7, 2023)
“Demise of STRESS, Detroit’s Deadliest Police Squad, Began with Tragic Death of Teens,”Detroit Free Press (Sept. 5, 2021).
“How White Americans’ Refusal to Accept Busing Has Kept Schools Segregated,” Washington Post/Made by History (April 20, 2021).
“What the Older Generations Owe the Young 50 Years after the First Earth Day,” Washington Post/Made By History (April 22, 2020).
“The Forgotten Environmental Action that Pointed the Way Forward for the Left,” Washington Post/Made by History (March 11, 2020).
“Turning Affluent Suburbs Blue Isn’t Worth the Cost,” New York Times (June 9, 2018), coauthored with Lily Geismer.
“Who Speaks for the Silent Majority?” New York Times (Nov. 2, 2011).
“Time to Back Up the Greenbelt: City Must Commit to Affordable Housing, Higher Urban Density,” Ann Arbor News (Nov. 16, 2003). Coauthored with Rick Hills.
Publications in Magazines and Online Forums
“Police and the License to Kill,” Boston Review (April 29, 2021).
“Stop Worrying about Upper-Class Suburbanites,” Jacobin (January 2, 2021), coauthored with Lily Geismer.
“Biden’s Defense of Anti-Busing Past Distorts History of Segregation in Delaware,” TalkingPointsMemo (July 18, 2019).
“Putting the 2016 Election into Historical Context,” Roundtable by Process: A Blog for American History (Organization of American Historians), December 5, 2016.
Obama History Project Contributor, New York Magazine (January 11, 2015), part of the “53 Historians Weigh In on Barack Obama’s Legacy” forum.
“Suburban Diversity and Economic Inequality: Can the Democrats Meet the Challenge?” Dissent (Fall 2010).
“Keep on Truckin’: The Road to Right-Wing Deregulation Began on our Nation’s Highways,” Democracy: A Journal of Ideas (Winter 2009).
“Beyond the Red-Blue Divide,” in “Special Forum: The Sixties and the 2008 Presidential Election,” The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics, and Culture (June 2009).
“The ‘Color-Blind’ Inversion of Civil Rights History,” Roundtable on the America of George W. Bush, Revue Francaise D’Etudes Americaines (Sept. 2007).
Guest on Radio, Television, and Podcasts
“Exhibit Looks at Police Brutality in Detroit during the Civil Rights Era,” Michigan Radio/NPR (May 19, 2021).
“Amid Changing Political Landscape, Suburbs No Longer Belong to GOP,” NPR Morning Edition (March 31, 2021).
“Trump Wants Suburban Voters. Do They Want Him?” Minnesota Public Radio (Aug. 19. 2020).
“Who Is the Silent Majority?” BackStory, “Nixon Beyond Watergate” Episode (January 25, 2019).
“Stuck in the Middle (Class) with You,” National Public Radio (Nov. 4, 2012).
“The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism,” C-Span (April 9, 2010)
“The Vanishing Middle Class,” Inside Out Documentaries/Boston NPR 90.9WBUR (Dec. 2008).
“The Legacy of the ‘Little Rock Nine’,” Talk of the Nation/National Public Radio (Sept. 25, 2007).
“Popular Culture’s Evolving View of the Suburbs,” Weekend Edition/National Public Radio (Oct. 7, 2006).
“Rethinking Suburbia,” Weekday/NPR-KUOW/Seattle (Feb. 27, 2006).
“Issues of the Environment: Suburban Sprawl,” NPR-WEMU 89.1 (May 5, 2004).
“History of War on Drugs and Ann Arbor Hash Bash,” Stateside/Michigan Radio-NPR (March 25, 2004).
Featured in Newspaper and Magazine Articles
“Why Trump’s Blunt Appeals to Suburban Voters May Not Work,” New York Times (July 30, 2020).
“The Suburbs Are Changing. But Not in All the Ways Liberals Hope,” New York Times (Nov. 26, 2018).
“What If America Had Taken Its Own Advice on Race?” The Atlantic (May 9, 2018)
“The Appeal of ‘Trump-ism,’” The Atlantic (July 24, 2015).
“Interpreting some Overlooked Stories from the South,” New York Times (May 1, 2007).
“Beyond the Picket Fence: Historians Are Finally Giving the Suburbs their Due-and Changing their Lily-White Image,” Boston Globe (July 23, 2006)
“Nation’s Suburbs Gain Respect in Academia: Classes Reflect Influence on Social Issues,” Detroit News (April 19, 2006)
“The South Returns to America,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution (March 26, 2006).
“Can This Be ‘The End of Southern History?’“ Newhouse News Service (March 20, 2006).
“Backstory: Suburbia 101,” Christian Science Monitor (Jan. 11, 2006).