Cities and Urbanisation

Research of this group draws on long-standing expertise in modernity and cities, urban metabolism, unequal access to services and shelter, the role of services for urban economies and urban modelling and falls into three broad resaerch areas: Globalisation, urban change and regional economic transformation; Urban metabolism and the restructuring of the public realm; Housing, property and social exclusion.

Globalisation, urban change and regional economic transformation includes work on the impact of modernity on changes in the physical, social and cultural fabric of urban life, explores the application of topological concepts and evolutionary metaphors to examine the impact of globalisation on consumption spaces, urban and regional economic transformation, and investigates the importance of knowledge intensive services and cluster-based strategies as urban development strategy.

Urban metabolism and the restructuring of the public realm examines the relationship between the materiality of urban life, socio-cultural change and political movements in urban settings through the analysis of water and sanitation systems in Bogota, Berlin, Lagos, Los Angeles, Mumbai, New York, Paris and Sub-Saharan Africa.  Work on cyborg urbanisation has provided new theoretical perspectives on urban environments.

Housing, property and social exclusion includes research on the role of property titling in promoting settlement upgrading, economic development and women’s security in low-income self-built housing areas in cities of the Global South and work on planning controversies surrounding high flats in London, New York and Toronto, investigation of small area variation in urban poverty and deprivation through small area data analysis, work on state-funded housing and gated communities and the role of rental housing for urban poor in South Africa and Latin America.

Funding has been secured from the ESRC, EPSRC, NERC, the European Commission, Leverhulme, Home Office, AHRC, Humboldt and the British Academy supporting 46 PhD students and 14 Research Assistants.  Members of the group also play a full role in the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) and the UCL Urban Laboratory and contribute to the MSc Geographies of Globalisation, MSc Modernity, Space and Place and MSc in Urban Studies.

Click here for a list of the current research grants.

Staff

• Richard Dennis

• Matthew Gandy

• Alan Gilbert

• Andrew Harris

• James Kneale

• Alan Latham

• Charlotte Lemanski

• Paul Longley

• Ben Page

• Ann Varley

• Peter Wood