Newspapers' largely white, male architecture critics are a reflection of the structural inequalities of the built environment and are not equipped to deal with our current time of crisis, says Mimi Zeiger.

On 8 January, just days after insurrectionists stormed the capital, architecture critic Blair Kamin announced on Twitter that after nearly three decades he would step down from his role at the Chicago Tribune. Some, whose minds were previously reeling from the events in Washington, suddenly had a new fixation: Who would replace him"
Kamin refrained from playing favourites, preferring to honour his Pulitzer-winning predecessor Paul Gapp, who served as the paper's architecture critic for 18 years. In that vacuum, speculation erupted in tweets and on backchannels. Names were floated then caught in what seemed like a vortex, but was really just an eddy compared to national events. A similar flurry happened in 2018 when Christopher Hawthorne left his post as the Los Angeles Times architecture critic after 14 years to become chief design officer for the city of Los Angeles. And in 2011, when Nicolai Ouroussoff resigned after seven years at the New York Times ? a relatively short critical run by comparison.
In each case, unaffiliated writers and critics vied for the top spot. My own heartbeat hard three years ago when I found myself in a cluster of names circling the LA Times spot. Like bridesmaids, we held our breath waiting to see who would catch the bouquet.
We are le...