Astrid Wood

CURRENT RESEARCH

Peripatetic Planning: Tracing the Mobility of Bus Rapid Transit through South African Cities
In 2006, BRT-fever swept South Africa. Within three years of learning of the Bogota bus rapid transit (BRT) model, both Johannesburg and Cape Town had implemented new BRT systems with four other cities in various stages of the planning process. This international concept has swept the Global South through a process of policy circulation and often misinterpreted as learning. This research investigates the process through which South African cities "learned" of BRT in order to understand if the occurrence was a learning process or simply a process of policy transfer and replication. The general idea of innovation and the practice through which cities innovate has been studied but rarely following a particular instance of learning from conceptualization through implementation. By way of example, this research on the circulation of BRT through South African cities will explore various aspects pertinent to theories of policy mobility, policy transfer and city-to-city learning by considering the way in which ideas mobilize and transform, the role of policy mobilizers and the context made ripe and receptive to foreign policy models. This is not an assessment of the viability or sustainability of BRT systems but an academic exploration of policy circulation and specifically, how and why do cities adopt circulated innovations.

EDUCATION

• University College London, Department of Geography, PhD (2010-2013)
  Thesis: Peripatetic Planning: Tracing the Mobility of Bus Rapid Transit through South African Cities

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Master of City Planning (2006-2008)
  Thesis: Wasted Opportunities: Inequality and Fragmentation in the 2010 South Africa World Cup
  Certificate: Urban Design, City Design and Development

• Hampshire College, School of Social Science, Bachelor of Arts (2002-2006)
  Thesis: Endangered Museums: The Viability of Living History Museums in the Modern Era

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

• Negotiating the Bus Rapid Transit System in Postapartheid Cities. 2013. In C. Haferburg & M. Huchzermeyer, eds. Urban Governance in Postapartheid Cities: Modes of Engagement in South Africa’s Metropoles. Berlin: Borntraeger.
• Erudition and Urbanism: Colloquial Learning in the City. Geographica Helvetica 67 (December 2012): 177-178.
• Review of Territories and Urbanisation in South Africa: Atlas and Geo-Historical Information System by Frédéric Giraut and Céline Vacchiani-Marcuzzo. African Affairs 111, 444 (July 2012): 499-500.
• Review of Southern Africa: Old Treacheries and New Deceits by Stephen Chan. African Affairs 110, 441 (October 2011): 375-376.

• Review of Ending Apartheid by David Welsh and J. E. Spence. African Affairs 110, 440 (June 2011): 507-509.

• Review of Nelson Mandela: A Very Short Introduction, by Ellen Boehmer. African Affairs 110, 439 (April 2011): 323-324.

• "Access, Not Availability, Drives Urban Hunger," in Inclusive Cities Annual (South African Cities Network, 2009), 14-21.

• "Growing a Green Economy," in  Sustainable Cities Annual (South African Cities Network, 2009), 32-38.

• “South African Cities Unprepared for Disaster,” in Well-Governed Cities Annual (South African Cities Network, 2009), 16-23.

• “Assessing the Impact of the 2010 FIFA World Cup on Development of South African Cities," in Well-Governed Cities Annual (South African Cities Network, 2009), 40-48.

• “Wasted Opportunities: Inequality and Fragmentation in the 2010 South Africa World Cup.” MCP diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008.

• “Endangered Museums: The Viability of Living History Museums in the Modern Era.” BA diss., Hampshire College, 2006.

For more information on research research, employment and and publications:

visit - www.astridwood.com

email - astrid.wood.10(at)ucl.ac.uk

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