This collection brings together essays on how governance, urban change, and cultural memory shape civic life. Civic accountability, spatial politics, diaspora, and ethics all influence how we understand power, place, identity and belonging.
Drawing on experiences across civic, institutional, and cultural settings, these pieces are infused with literature, history, and philosophy. They offer insight into the forces shaping our cities, societies, and selves today.
Jump to Section: Civic Accountability | Urban Change | Diaspora | Civic Ethics
Civic Accountability
Loafers Lodge: Public Sector Accountability in the Wake of a Disaster
Wellington, NZ — Long‑form policy essay
A fatal 2023 fire at a Wellington boarding house exposed failures in housing, regulation, and public oversight. Written while serving as Government Accountability Advisor at New Zealand’s housing ministry and as a graduate student at Victoria University of Wellington, this essay asks:
Who is accountable when preventable tragedies occur — and what must change to restore public trust?
Themes: public governance, housing injustice, crisis response, civic trust
You can also read my work leading HUD’s first in-house Annual Report.
Urban Change & Spatial Politics
Essays on how cities are shaped — and reshaped — by power, policy, and memory.
Things (Continue to) Fall Apart
London, UK | Essay + short film
A modernist photo essay and video inspired by Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and using London’s Elephant and Castle Mall as allegory for capitalist displacement and the slow violence of redevelopment. Blends literary critique, personal observation, and cultural memory to ask:
what is lost when the places that hold us are erased?
Themes: gentrification, belonging, memory, displacement
See also: A Paean to the Mall at Elephant & Castle
A Paean to the Mall at Elephant & Castle
London, UK | Essay
A layered meditation on urban regeneration, nostalgia, and the politics of public space.
Part love letter, part lament, written while living in South London. Field notes, historical fragments, and personal reflection explore authentic use of urban space, and the displacement that follows redevelopment.
What makes a place worth keeping — and who gets to decide?
Themes: urban change, belonging, displacement, everyday architecture, cultural memory
See also: Things (Continue) to Fall Apart
On Power, Profit, and the Architecture of Displacement
Vancouver (and beyond) | Short Commentary
How modernist ideals, speculative development, and urban design shape who the city serves — and who it excludes. Draws on architecture, literature, and urban theory to examine the gap between beauty and belonging in an increasingly commodified landscape.
What happens when place-making becomes a tool of erasure?
Themes: urban ideology, displacement, architecture, speculative development
Diaspora & Social Memory
Reflections on how identity, history, and cultural memory shape who we are and where we belong.
Ruins and Reckonings: On Identity, Memory, and Belonging in Rome
Rome (from afar) — Essay
Explores how Rome’s layers of myth, empire, decay, and renewal shape ideas of identity, memory, and cultural inheritance. Uses the city as allegory to reflect on how we mediate selfhood through change.
Life is change. How do you mediate your identity in its wake?
Themes: cultural identity, memory, symbolism, classical inheritance, place and self
Civic Ethics & Governance
Reflections on leadership, ethics, and how power shapes civic life.
Leading wisely: how benevolent governance can help society flourish
Across traditions — Reflection
Classical philosophy meets public policy — exploring how virtue, wisdom, and moral imagination help societies to thrive.
What if power were exercised with the well-being of all in mind?
Themes: civic ethics, leadership, benevolence, classical philosophy, public good
Friend or enemy: Schmitt’s specious dichotomy
Germany (via theory) — Reflection
A critique of Carl Schmitt’s friend–enemy framing and its influence on modern politics. Examines how conflict‑based legitimacy erodes democratic belonging.
Can democracy survive when belonging is framed as a threat?
Themes: political philosophy, legitimacy, authoritarianism, power
Human Flourishing: Aristotle on How to Live Your Best Life
Ancient Greece (and everywhere) — Reflection
Explores Aristotle’s idea of eudaimonia — flourishing as a lifelong practice of purpose, virtue, and thoughtful action.
What does it mean to live well — not just for yourself, but for the world?
Themes: virtue ethics, purpose, classical philosophy, flourishing, moral life
Teresa Stolarskyj 