Urban Radar

In this episode Tom and Beth are joined by Catherine Durose from the University of Liverpool and co-lead of the Co-production Futures Inquiry, and Beth Chitekwe-Biti, Executive Director of Slum Dwellers International (SDI) Secretariat and Community Knowledge Lead for the African Cities Research Consortium. 

Universities are increasingly expected to produce cutting edge research, be relevant and impactful and deliver value to students, governments and industry. They are seen as active players in local, national and international development work with communities. They are also increasingly criticised or even attacked, with scrutiny over their roles across the political spectrum.

In the meantime, many urban researchers have always worked collaboratively, in deep and trusted partnerships with community organisations and residents to improve everyday living or develop advocacy or reform coalitions for urban change. There is plenty of evidence about how universities and academics can work productively together to address urban injustices.

Specifically in this episode, we discuss co-production - what it means, why it matters for urban researchers, practitioners and residents and what conditions we need within universities to do it well. 

Guests:

Professor Catherine Durose is Professor of Public Policy and Co-Director of the University of Liverpool's Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place. She has written extensively on the politics and possibilities of co-production, including for Nature.  She is Co-Lead, with Beth Perry, Liz Richardson and Bryony Vince-Myers, of the Research England-funded Co-Production Futures Inquiry, a collective intelligence gathering exercise to mobilise change to address institutional barriers to co-produced and participatory research. The Inquiry is open to evidence until December 2026. Submit here.

Dr Beth Chitekwe-Biti is Executive Director of the Slum Dwellers International (SDI) Secretariat. SDI is a network of federations of the urban poor across Africa, Asia and Latin America. She is Director of Community Knowledge at the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC). Beth holds a PhD from the University of Manchester, where her research examined the impact of social movements on urbanisation and urban land policy. Her published work focuses on how organised communities of the urban poor co-produce urban change with the state. 

Read more! 

Outputs from the Co-Production Futures Inquiry

• Getting our own house in order 
• Evidence from across the UK higher education sector
• Doubling Down Not Ducking Out: Why Co-Production of Research Matters Now

Visit the SDI Knowledge Hub

Read outputs from the African Cities Research Consortium

Underpinning research

Co-production as praxis: critique and engagement from within the university

Is co-production a ‘good’ concept? Three responses

Leadership and the hidden politics of co-produced research: a Q-methodology study

Jam and Justice: Co-producing Urban Governance

Realising Just Cities

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Development in the Global Development Institute, and CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium, University of Manchester.  His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, and urban institutional change. (linkedin.com/in/tom-goodfellow-0b418441) 

Beth Perry is Professor of Urban Epistemics and Director of the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the relationships between urban expertise, governance and justice, underpinned by a commitment to co-producing collective intelligence across multiple scales to address complex urban challenges. She has worked in cities in Africa, Europe and the UK. (linkedin.com/in/itsbethperry)

Email feedback to: [email protected]

You can also follow us on instagram: @urbanradarpodcast

Thanks to the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester for providing time, resources and equipment to support this podcast. And to Sam Burgum, for post-production editing and promotion.

In this month's episode, Beth and Tom reflect on UN World Clean-up Day, inviting Deji Akinpelu (Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development (CHSD) University of Lagos), and Purva Dewoolkar (School of Environment, Education and Development, University of Manchester) to share their work rethinking waste management and sanitation in Lagos and Mumbai.

'Cleaning up the city' is easier said than done - and can also be dangerous, depending on the nature of the waste. Waste management is central to the livelihoods of millions of people in cities around the world, as well as to food chains and questions of nutrition. Together they discuss how to manage different kinds of waste in an integrated way, the roles of different individuals and groups, including residents, waste pickers and local governments, and how waste connects to wider climate resilience actions and plans. 

Also on the radar:

• Why do capital cities get moved, and will Uganda be moving its capital?
• What do new UK sanctions on Israeli settlements mean for the two-state and ‘shared homeland’ solutions? And what is the potential role of cities?
• What is the history of cities seceding from nation-states?
• What are the positive and negative effects on the city of massive urban running events?
• What are the implications of AI 'superintelligence' for cities and towns, according to different generations?
• What’s in a name? With Trump renaming more geographies, does Tom know the former names of cities in Beth’s quiz? 

Guests: 

Deji Akinpelu is a documentary filmmaker, photographer and advocate for inclusive urban development whose practice documents architecture, heritage and everyday urbanism across Lagos and West Africa. He founded the Rethinking Cities Initiative (RCI) in 2017, following the forced eviction of the waterfront community at Otodo Gbame, and has since built a body of work that treats the recording of the city, its buildings, its cultural traditions and its threatened settlements, as an act of advocacy for their survival.Challenges and opportunities for inclusive water delivery in Lagos

• Challenges and opportunities for inclusive water delivery in Lagos
• Displaced: A City’s Scars

Purva Dewoolkar is Bicentenary Research Fellow in the School of Environment, Education and Development, University of Manchester. Dewoolkar’s research integrates human geography, urban studies, critical development studies, and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH), collaborating with Mumbai's campaign for Universal Access to Water and Manchester's cultural institutions to develop care-centred, community-led approaches for documenting and understanding urban infrastructural struggles in the Global South, centring the lived experiences and vocabularies of resistance.

• On shaky grounds: situating safe sanitation in Mumbai’s sub-surface legacies of waster
• Habitation counter-stories: thinking from the autoconstructed basti-Cheeta Camp, Mumbai
• Sewers and sewage treatment in Mumbai: Temporality, difference, competing universals and infrastructural entanglements.

Links

Sponsor Beth to raise money for War Child UK

Off the Shelf – Festival of Words, Sheffield 2026

Doubling Down Not Ducking Out: Why Co-production of Research Matters Now

References:

Jaim Yacobi and Omar Dajani - 'Shared Homeland Paradigm' ESRC project

Jane Jacobs - Cities and the Wealth of Nations

Charles Tilly - Cities and States in World History

Edensor & Larsen -  Rhythmanalysing marathon running

How to be an Anti-Capitalist City

David Robinson - The Intelligence Trap

Cugurullo et al - The Rise of AI Urbanism in Post-Smart Cities

The Conversation - ‘Gen Z is pushing back against AI’

Prerona Das - Smart Cities Beyond Methodological Cityism

Prince Guma - The Temporal Incompleteness of Infrastructure and the Urban

Gabriella Bennett -  How to Build a City

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Development in the Global Development Institute, and CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium, University of Manchester.  His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, and urban institutional change. (linkedin.com/in/tom-goodfellow-0b418441) 

Beth Perry is Professor of Urban Epistemics and Director of the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the relationships between urban expertise, governance and justice, underpinned by a commitment to co-producing collective intelligence across multiple scales to address complex urban challenges. She has worked in cities in Africa, Europe and the UK. (linkedin.com/in/itsbethperry)

Email feedback to: [email protected]

You can also follow us on instagram: @urbanradarpodcast

Thanks to the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester for providing time, resources and equipment to support this podcast. And to Sam Burgum, for post-production editing and promotion.

In this month's episode, Beth and Tom mark World Indigenous Peoples' Day and the International Day of Youth with Dr Philipp Horn, School of Geography and Planning, University of Sheffield. Drawing on Philipp's work with Indigenous youth from the Bolivian cities of El Alto, Santa Cruz, Sucre and Rurrenabaque, they challenge stereotypes of indigenous lives, highlighting fluid geographies and mobilities between urban and rural areas. 

Together they discuss Indigenous claims to the city, how young Indigenous people navigate urban life and what indigenous epistemology and practice can offer urban studies.

Also on the radar

• How strategic and local authorities are responding to the new guidance on what 'sex' means in the Equalities Act 2010
• Why border cities are geopolitical flashpoints: a look at Ceuta in context
• What feral cats in Seoul and dogs in Istanbul tell us about more-than-human urban development
• How marine heatwaves impact coastal cities and communities
• How population surges and shrinkages shape urban politics around the world
• Whether urban glitches, like a solar eclipse, disrupt the 24-hour city
  
  

Guest: 

Philipp Horn is Senior Lecturer in the School of Geography and Planning at the University of Sheffield, UK. His research focuses on Indigenous urbanism, youth rights, urban informality, and participatory planning in the global South, with a regional focus on Latin America. He has published numerous journal articles, books, book chapters and working papers, with recent work focusing on multilocal Indigenous lives, urban informality, and multi-modal collaborative research. Find out more about his work on these project websites:

• Indigenous Development Alternatives, funded by the ESRC
• Contested Territories, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 873082)

From the back catalogue:

Trans Rights and the City

Seeing the City

River/City

References:

Lessons from Ceuta, Myriam Cherti 

Beyond the Border, Alice Buoli

Open Call: Surfaces of War, Popular Intelligence in the Mediterranean

Yongsan Cats

Between Care and Violence: The Dogs of Istanbul

Ottoman History Podcast - Between Care and Violence: The Dogs of Istanbul | Mine Yıldırım | Free Listening on Podbean App

Call for Community Consultation: Journal of Southern Theorising

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Development in the Global Development Institute, and CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium, University of Manchester.  His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, and urban institutional change. (linkedin.com/in/tom-goodfellow-0b418441) 

Beth Perry is Professor of Urban Epistemics and Director of the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the relationships between urban expertise, governance and justice, underpinned by a commitment to co-producing collective intelligence across multiple scales to address complex urban challenges. She has worked in cities in Africa, Europe and the UK. (linkedin.com/in/itsbethperry)

Email feedback to: [email protected]

You can also follow us on instagram: @urbanradarpodcast

Thanks to the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester for providing time, resources and equipment to support this podcast. And to Sam Burgum, for post-production editing and promotion.

In July's radar, we report back from one of the major urban studies conferences - RC21 - which is held every two years in different cities across the world. Bringing together 1200 scholars at the University of Vienna, the 2026 conference provided spaces for provocation and discussion about the methods, approaches and theories we need to identify and address urban inequalities in these contemporary times. 

The central part of the episode is a discussion with the editors of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR) - Mona Fawaz, Liza Weinstein and Nik Theodore - about their 50th anniversary plans. We are excited to announce that these include a proposed collab with Urban Radar to produce a mini-series of special episodes connecting long-standing urban questions raised by scholars over the past five decades to contemporary analysis from emerging researchers.

We also share a series of vox-pops from the conference, with Dolf te Lintelo, Catalina Ortiz, Gabriel Silvestre, Nitin Bathla, Simone Tulumello, Lindsay Sawyer and Vanesa Castan Broto.

Before that, on our radar we discuss:

• Whether the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz might herald the development of new 'chokepoint' cities able to control strategic waterways
• What Count Binface could learn from previous comedy candidates standing for election
• The implications of Berlin's bunker shortage for cultural and arts venues
•  The Soho bar brawl and which city has the latest bedtime
• Why young people are busy doing nothing in Bangkok
• Why environmentalists are disputing the closure of a colonial-era polo club in Delhi

Read More:

Founding IJURR editorial, 1977

Reflections on Critical Urban Studies in Perilous Times

RC21 Conference Website 

From Our Archive:

RIVER/CITY: A conversation with Olivia Casagrande and Roberto Monte-Mor

SEEING THE CITY: A conversation with Junia Mortimer and Felipe Magalhaes

URBAN LABS IN TIMES OF CRISIS AND POST-TRUTH: A conversation with Mona Fawaz and Nausheen Anwar

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Development in the Global Development Institute, and CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium, University of Manchester.  His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, and urban institutional change. (linkedin.com/in/tom-goodfellow-0b418441) 

Beth Perry is Professor of Urban Epistemics and Director of the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the relationships between urban expertise, governance and justice, underpinned by a commitment to co-producing collective intelligence across multiple scales to address complex urban challenges. She has worked in cities in Africa, Europe and the UK. (linkedin.com/in/itsbethperry)

Email feedback to: [email protected]

You can also follow us on instagram: @urbanradarpodcast

Thanks to the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester for providing time, resources and equipment to support this podcast. And to Sam Burgum, for post-production editing and promotion.

In this month's feature Tom and Beth are joined by Professor Nicola Banks from the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester to discuss One World Together, an innovative model of charitable giving that makes sure the bulk of the funding ends up where it is needed most. 

Often less than 10% of what we give to charity gets to where it's needed, and communities are not always the ones deciding what it gets spent on - even though they are the best placed to identify and address local challenges. What if there is a different way?

We discuss:

• Why are traditional approaches to charity unsuited to addressing urban poverty around the world?
• How does the reduction of international aid impact the existing structural and institutional inequalities which underpin dominant development and donor models of charitable giving? 
• How do innovations like One World Together help us rethink charitable approaches to addressing urban poverty? 

Guest:

Nicola Banks is a Professor of Global Development in the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester. Her research situates development as a long-term process of transformation and social justice. She has undertaken decades of research on urban poverty, youth and the role of NGOs in global development, including work on employment and livelihoods among the urban poor in Dhaka, Bangladesh and an ESRC Future Research Leaders award to look at youth experiences of urban poverty in Tanzania. She is Director of Social Responsibility for the School for Environment, Education and Development (SEED) and in 2022 launched One World Together, a global movement for trust-based giving which has been recognised for outstanding social and environmental impact through the University of Manchester’s Making a Difference Award.

Donate:

Home - One World Together

Read more:

Power and its discontents: The long road to systemic change in the aid sector - ScienceDirect

NGOs, States, and Donors Revisited: Still Too Close for Comfort? - ScienceDirect

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Development in the Global Development Institute, and CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium, University of Manchester.  His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, and urban institutional change. (linkedin.com/in/tom-goodfellow-0b418441) 

Beth Perry is Professor of Urban Epistemics and Director of the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the relationships between urban expertise, governance and justice, underpinned by a commitment to co-producing collective intelligence across multiple scales to address complex urban challenges. She has worked in cities in Africa, Europe and the UK. (linkedin.com/in/itsbethperry)

Email feedback to: [email protected]

You can also follow us on instagram: @urbanradarpodcast

Thanks to the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester for providing time, resources and equipment to support this podcast. And to Sam Burgum, for post-production editing and promotion.

In this episode Tom and Beth are joined by Professor Sarah Marie Hall from the University of Manchester to reflect on ten years since Brexit and specifically how austerity has altered the lifecourses of young people in Barcelona, Sardinia and Greater Manchester. 

Together, they discuss how Brexit layered on top of existing crises, how community podcasts helped chart economic change during this extended period of waiting, and why valuing everyday lived experience as evidence is a radical act. And, perhaps, even a way to finally bring austerity as a lived condition to an end. 

Go to 32:54 for this discussion.

Also on our radar:

• Why the UK is introducing Dutch-style youth hubs
• How the boundaries between humans and animals are changing in the city
• Whether local authorities are ready for a hybrid war with Russia
• How human factors, from corruption to poverty and planning regulations, might have worsened damage from the earthquake in Venezuela
• "Goonism" and the underground economy of political street violence in Kenyan cities
• Banning flags in Oxfordshire 

Guest:

Sarah Marie Hall joined University of Manchester in October 2012 as a Hallsworth Research Fellow in Political Economy and became a Professor in 2022. She is a member of the Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives and Manchester Urban Institute, where she previously co-chaired the Urban Justice, Gender and Social Difference Feminist Collective. In February 2021 she won a £1.5m UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship on the theme of Austerity and Altered Lifecourses, a 5- year project across the UK, Spain and Italy which has recently been extended for three further years. Click here to visit the Future Lives and Austerity Digital Exhibition. 

From our archives:

Episode 15 on Brexit and rats 

Episode 11 on flag wars

Read more:

Much loved collection for Butterfly Conservation, in memory of Malcolm Tait

Archipelagic Technonatures (Simon Marvin)

Watch Salisbury Poisonings: The Untold Story | Stream free on Channel 4

Africa's shadow enforcers - The Continent

On Staying (Will Mason)

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Development in the Global Development Institute, and CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium, University of Manchester.  His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, and urban institutional change. (linkedin.com/in/tom-goodfellow-0b418441) 

Beth Perry is Professor of Urban Epistemics and Director of the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the relationships between urban expertise, governance and justice, underpinned by a commitment to co-producing collective intelligence across multiple scales to address complex urban challenges. She has worked in cities in Africa, Europe and the UK. (linkedin.com/in/itsbethperry)

Email feedback to: [email protected]

You can also follow us on instagram: @urbanradarpodcast

Thanks to the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester for providing time, resources and equipment to support this podcast. And to Sam Burgum, for post-production editing and promotion.

High up in the Andes mountain range, two rivers begin their journeys. Starting in the El Plomo hill, one becomes the Mapocho river travelling though Chile into Santiago, dividing the city in two.  The other makes its way from the Peruvian Andes and develops into a complex network of waters and rivers to become the Amazon basin, one of the longest rivers in the world. Rivers such as these shape and are shaped by the cities they meet.

In this month’s feature Tom and Beth are joined by Dr Olivia Casagrande and Professor Roberto Monte-Mór to ask: 

• What can urbanists learn from studying the Mapocho and Amazon rivers?
• How does thinking with rivers challenge our categories of urbanization, racialization and indigeneity?
• How do creative and visual methods enable us to see or dream with the river differently?

Together they take a fascinating tour, diving into concepts of ‘extended naturalization’ and ‘fluvial epistemic alternatives’; following what river/city intersections mean for metropolitan green-blue planning; unpacking the implications of giving legal rights to rivers and the meanings of indigenous narratives; and how storytelling with and through rivers helps us dream of alternative ways of being and doing. 

Guests

Olivia Casagrande is a social anthropologist engaged in interdisciplinary and collaborative research on inequalities, political and racial violence, the (post)colonial city and alternative urban epistemologies. She is a Lecturer at the School of Geography and Planning, University of Sheffield. She has recently completed an ESRC project with the Epew Collective in Santiago, Chile, which led to multiple creative outputs developed along the Mapocho River, available on Fillke Pewma. Recent works concern questions of authorship and engagements in collaborative research with indigenous groups.

Roberto Monte-Mór is a Professor at the Centre for Development and Regional Planning and Graduate Centre for Architecture and Urbanism at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. His teaching and research focus on economics and urbanism, particularly urbanization, and planning theories, metropolitan and regional planning, urban and regional economics, solidarity economies, spatial organization, and development alternatives in the Amazon. His photography is the basis of a new work with Junia Mortimer on Urban-Nature Archives, which is also discussed in this paper.

From our archives:

Seeing the City: A discussion with Junia Mortimer and Felipe Magalhaes (Episode 20)

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Development in the Global Development Institute, and CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium, University of Manchester.  His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, and urban institutional change. (linkedin.com/in/tom-goodfellow-0b418441) 

Beth Perry is Professor of Urban Epistemics and Director of the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the relationships between urban expertise, governance and justice, underpinned by a commitment to co-producing collective intelligence across multiple scales to address complex urban challenges. She has worked in cities in Africa, Europe and the UK. (linkedin.com/in/itsbethperry)

Email feedback to: [email protected]

You can also follow us on instagram: @urbanradarpodcast

Thanks to the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester for providing time, resources and equipment to support this podcast. And to Sam Burgum, for post-production editing and promotion.

In this episode Beth and Tom are joined by Dr Lotte Hargrave from the University of Manchester to discuss whether psephology - the study of elections and voting behaviour - can predict the next Prime Minister of the UK. 

All eyes are turned on the town of Makerfield in Greater Manchester, where Andy Burnham is making a play to win the constituency and head south - back to Westminster, and (probably) a leadership contest to replace Keir Starmer as UK PM. 

With Lotte we discuss whether we can predict the results of the election, the potential outcomes of a win for Burnham for the Greater Manchester mayoralty and why hyperlocal factors suggest it is all still to play for. 

Go to 27:56 for this discussion.

Also on our radar:

• Whether the UK needs to introduce maximum indoor temperatures for workplaces as urban heat rises
• Rising concern about Ebola in African cities in the shadow of global aid cuts
• Activism and urban organising for domestic workers
• How urbanization is driving the global sand crisis 
• The many faces and contradictions of datacentre resistance
• Housing and the World Urban Forum in Baku, Azerbaijan  

Guest:

Dr Lotte Hargrave is a Lecturer in Quantitative Political Science at the University of Manchester and a contracted psephologist for the BBC Elections Programme. Her research focuses on political behaviour, public opinion, gender and stereotyping in politics, and electoral politics. Before joining Manchester, she was Head of Data Science at the polling company Deltapoll. Website: Dr Lotte Hargrave

From our archives:

Interview with Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram (Episode 6)

The Manchester Model - with Adam Leaver and Rich Goulding (Episode 2)

Read more:

sand — RareEarth_KateDawson

AI Data Centers Are The New Plantations Unless We Build Them Differently - Honolulu Civil Beat

Building Climate Resilient Housing - World Cities Report

Late deciders, higher turnout - The Conversation

Political favourability ratings, May 2026

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Development in the Global Development Institute, and CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium, University of Manchester.  His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, and urban institutional change. (linkedin.com/in/tom-goodfellow-0b418441) 

Beth Perry is Professor of Urban Epistemics and Director of the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the relationships between urban expertise, governance and justice, underpinned by a commitment to co-producing collective intelligence across multiple scales to address complex urban challenges. She has worked in cities in Africa, Europe and the UK. (linkedin.com/in/itsbethperry)

Email feedback to: [email protected]

You can also follow us on instagram: @urbanradarpodcast

Thanks to the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester for providing time, resources and equipment to support this podcast. And to Sam Burgum, for post-production editing and promotion.

In this episode - recorded on location in Kampala, Uganda during an African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) workshop in late April - we delve into questions of how urban communities in informal settlements can build power through their own forms of knowledge and data collection, and how two-way exchanges between cities can strengthen this process. 

For the main discussion, Tom was there in person with two of the research programme’s ‘City Manager’s - Jack Makau (City Manager for Nairobi) and Temilade Sesan (City Manager for Lagos). The discussion is first introduced by Beth and Tom who set the scene and provide some background, and following the main conversation they also offer concluding reflections. 

In this episode, we explore: 

• How can community-led data collection and analysis help to shift the levers of urban power?
• What role can action research play in changing the attitudes of governments towards the urban poor?
• How can we move from individual to collective solutions through community action and transnational learning?

Along the way, we consider how co-produced urban research with communities changes the kinds of questions we ask as researchers; the challenges of bringing government to the table to take community priorities seriously; and the role of civil society organizations and universities as intermediaries in this process.

Those interested in the issues and processes discussed here can delve further into the history through our discussion with Diana Mitlin in Episode 12 on 'Urban Informality and Translocal Learning'.

Jack Makau is Associate director of Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) Kenya, and ACRC City Manager for Nairobi. In the course of his decades of work with SDI, he has worked to support communities collect data in over 400 informal settlements in cities across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Ghana, and Bukina Faso.

DR. Temilade Sesan is a Lecturer and Researcher at the Centre for Petroleum, Energy Economics and Law (CPEEL), University of Ibadan, Nigeria - and the ACRC City Manager for Lagos. Her research examines the socioeconomic dimensions of the food-energy-waste nexus in Africa, especially as they intersect with issues of the environment, gender, health and urban planning. 

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Development in the Global Development Institute, and CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium, University of Manchester.  His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, and urban institutional change. (linkedin.com/in/tom-goodfellow-0b418441) 

Beth Perry is Professor of Urban Epistemics and Director of the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the relationships between urban expertise, governance and justice, underpinned by a commitment to co-producing collective intelligence across multiple scales to address complex urban challenges. She has worked in cities in Africa, Europe and the UK. (linkedin.com/in/itsbethperry)

Email feedback to: [email protected]

You can also follow us on instagram: @urbanradarpodcast

Thanks to the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester for providing time, resources and equipment to support this podcast. And to Sam Burgum, for post-production editing and promotion.

In this episode, Beth and Tom are joined by Ryan Bellinson, researcher/civil servant living in Portland, Oregon, US, to discuss how residents and community groups can mobilise their power to resist democratic backsliding.

From Minneapolis to Portland federal immigration enforcement agents have been deploying hostile tactics to identify and seek to deport migrants, even those of legal status. Meanwhile federal programmes of support from housing to environmental protection are being slashed in part to finance massive increases in defence spending. The asymmetry between authoritarian and progressive forces is increasing. In this context, what powers and levers remain for grassroots groups and public bodies to push back?

Go straight to 33:13 for this conversation. 

First, on the radar, they discuss:

• Whether implementing Palantir's federal data platform in Sheffield could exacerbate health inequalities 
• What the Hillsborough Law has in common with ritualistic dunking in Trento, Italy
• Food security in the context of the closure of the straits of Hormuz
• Whether 'adopting' cities marks a new approach to post-war aid & reconstruction in Mykolaiv, Ukraine
• Pope versus Trump: appeals to authority and the role of religion in African cities
• Real estate in and around New York - what the media does and doesn't cover 

Guests:

Ryan Bellinson is a former PhD student of the University of Sheffield and is now Community Innovation Strategist at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. He also co-leads the new Governing Together programme, working with Dark Matter Labs, and is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Cities, Climate and Innovation at University College London’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.

Read more:

Healthy Soil, Healthy Food, Healthy People

Nation of Neighbours

Religious Urbanisation

Public Banking Project

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Development in the Global Development Institute, and CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium, University of Manchester.  His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, and urban institutional change. (linkedin.com/in/tom-goodfellow-0b418441) 

Beth Perry is Professor of Urban Epistemics and Director of the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the relationships between urban expertise, governance and justice, underpinned by a commitment to co-producing collective intelligence across multiple scales to address complex urban challenges. She has worked in cities in Africa, Europe and the UK. (linkedin.com/in/itsbethperry)

Email feedback to: [email protected]

You can also follow us on instagram: @urbanradarpodcast

Thanks to the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester for providing time, resources and equipment to support this podcast. And to Sam Burgum, for post-production editing and promotion.