In this feature, Tom and Beth discuss the Global Infrastructure Race with colleagues from the Urban Institute (UI), recorded live as part of the UI’s 10 year anniversary celebrations. Drawing on insights emerging from the GlobalCORRIDOR and Pluralize projects, Jon Silver, Zhengli Huang and Linda Westman share their interpretation of the Global Infrastructure Race, its urban impacts and how we can centre and decentre the role of China. Specifically they discuss:

• What is the Global Infrastructure Race and how can we understand its diverse geopolitical and economic manifestations?
• How can historical and contemporary analysis help unpack the role of China and Chinese investments?
• What are the impacts on cities and urban inequalities of these activities in and beyond China?             

Guests

Professor Jon Silver is an urban geographer interested in the uneven ways in which infrastructure is planned, operationalised and experienced, working across a range of cities in the global norths and south. He leads the GlobalCORRIDOR project.

Dr Zhengli Huang works on Chinese investment in infrastructure across Africa. She worked and lived in Kenya and her fieldwork experience extends to Ethiopia, Uganda, Zambia, and Mozambique. She works on GlobalCORRIDOR and Pluralize. 

Dr Linda Westman focusses on climate politics, urban transformation, and sustainability discourses, including the policy/governance aspects of low-carbon development in cities in China. She leads the Pluralize project. 

Read More 

The Material Geographies of the Belt and Road Initiative

Governing Climate Change in a Changing World 

Chinese Economic Zones in Africa

Funding

GlobalCORRIDOR (ID: 947779) funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

Pluralize was originally granted by the HORIZON Call: ERC-2022-STG and funded by UKRI (EP/Y00020X/1).

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Studies and International Development in the School of Geography and Planning at the University of Sheffield. 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.

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.

If you want to know more about the research featured in this podcast, follow Sheffield Urbanism on LinkedIn, or bluesky, Instagram or visit www.sheffield.ac.uk/urban-institute

Email feedback to: [email protected]

Thanks to the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Sheffield for funding this podcast and the Creative Media Suite for recording facilities.

Released to coincide with World Cities Day on 31 October, this episode sees Beth and Tom first joined by Prof. Matthew Flinders (26:09) to discuss what the rise in fortunes of the Green Party, UK, under Zack Polanski, means for progressive politics in the UK, and for a city like Sheffield. Then, with Said Zaaneen (51:46), they dive into what the history of refugee camps in the Gaza strip tells us about the role of international humanitarian aid, and consider implications for future reconstruction. 

Also on our radar:

• The ongoing impacts of Brexit on Northern cities
• Rats and multi-species urban life
• Urbanisation, colonisation, colonialism & outer space
• Cable cars, white elephants and Gen Z protests in Madagascar
• The Louvre heist & the material fabric of the city
• Why New Yorkers are not friends with AI Friend

Guests:

Matthew Flinders is Professor of Politics, Vice-President of the Political Studies Association and Chair of the Universities Policy Engagement Network. A former special advisor in both the House of Lords and House of Commons, he specialises in theoretically-informed policy-relevant research including on accountability, blame and democracy. 

Said Zaaneen is in the final stages of his PhD here at the University of Sheffield on Humanitarian aid, socio-spatial dynamics, and the evolution of refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, focusing particularly on two specific camps in Gaza - Jabalia and Deir Al Balah. Said also has an MSc in Management and Implementation of Development Projects from the University of Manchester, and prior to his PhD had more than 10 years experience working in humanitarian and development projects in the Gaza Strip.

Read More:

Madagascar protests: how ousted president Andry Rajoelina’s urban agenda backfired

Decolonial Museology, Space Travel and the Mineral Cabinet | Museum & Society

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Studies and International Development in the School of Geography and Planning at the University of Sheffield. 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.

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.

If you want to know more about the research featured in this podcast, follow Sheffield Urbanism on LinkedIn, or bluesky, Instagram or visit www.sheffield.ac.uk/urban-institute

Email feedback to: [email protected]

Thanks to the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Sheffield for funding this podcast and the Creative Media Suite for recording facilities.

In this month’s feature Tom and Beth are joined by two leading scholars of the urban condition - Ash Amin and AbdouMaliq Simone - to reflect on questions of inclusion and belonging in the search for the 'good city'. Building on their collaborative work for the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research's Humanity's Urban Future programme, our guests consider: 

• Are ideas of the good city still relevant in face of worsening inequality, segregation and individualism?
• Can a progressive politics of belonging overcome these divisions in a renewed urban public sphere? 
• And, as Black History Month draws to an end, how might ideas of ‘black urbanism’ inform and enrich the field of urban studies?

Guests

AbdouMaliq Simone works on issues of spatial composition in extended urban regions, the production of everyday life for urban majorities in the Global South, infrastructural imaginaries, collective affect, global blackness, and histories of the present for Muslim working classes. He is Professor Emeritus at the Urban Institute (University of Sheffield) and co-director of the Beyond Inhabitation Lab, Polytechnic University of Turin. In this episode he draws on themes explored in his work including The Surrounds: Urban Life within and beyond Capture and Improvised Lives. 

Professor Amin (University of Cambridge) is known for his work on the geographies of modern living: cities and regions as relationally constituted; globalisation, race and multiculture as a hybrid of biopolitics, and vernacular practices. He was founding co-editor of the Review of International Political Economy, is associate editor of City and is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Academy of Social Sciences.  In this episode we discuss his recent book After Nativism: Belonging in an Age of Intolerance and refer back to previous work including Seeing Like a City.

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Studies and International Development in the School of Geography and Planning at the University of Sheffield. 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.

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.

If you want to know more about the research featured in this podcast, follow Sheffield Urbanism on LinkedIn, or bluesky, Instagram or visit www.sheffield.ac.uk/urban-institute

Email feedback to: [email protected]

Thanks to the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Sheffield for funding this podcast and the Creative Media Suite for recording facilities.

This month we are joined by Dr Sam Burgum & Professor Simon Rushton to dive into what the new UK Minister for Homelessness should have on their agenda (27:50) and how we can understand the wider socio-economic issues shaping the recent Gen Z uprising in Nepal (50:08). 

Cutting across our discussions are questions of conflict over and in urban territory, federalism and decentralisation and how best to meet basic needs - such as shelter, health or security at the local (and national) level.

Also on our radar:

• What does the new US-UK tech partnership mean for regional inequalities, and how might this be regulated?
• The implications of extended settlements or 'outposts' in the West Bank
• The urban dynamics of witchcraft 
• What 'Your Party' could learn from New Municipalism
• Cities for cars not people? (and the masculinity of urban planning)
• Who is left to report on local democracy and conflict? The global crisis in press freedom

Guests:

Sam Burgum is a Visiting Researcher at the Urban Institute and works on homelessness, property and trespass. He has written about squatting in London, the city as archive, and the importance of a historical understanding of property ownership and who has the right to urban space.

Simon Rushton is Professor of International Politics in the School of Politics, Sociology and International Relations, working across issues including healthcare in Nepal and peace in Colombia. One recent co-authored book is Participating in Peace with a range of colleagues, and collaborated with CORMEPAZ, Plataforma IAP and PHASE Nepal.

Read More:

Corbyn's Momentum

Beyond the local trap

Becoming common of the public

Roadkill

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Studies and International Development in the School of Geography and Planning at the University of Sheffield. 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.

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.

If you want to know more about the research featured in this podcast, follow Sheffield Urbanism on LinkedIn, or bluesky, Instagram or visit www.sheffield.ac.uk/urban-institute

Email feedback to: [email protected]

Thanks to the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Sheffield for funding this podcast and the Creative Media Suite for recording facilities.

In this month's episode Tom and Beth discuss the value of translocal learning to address poverty and inequality for women in low income communities in India, Southern Africa, Kenya and the UK. 

Joined by guests Melanie Lombard and Diana Mitlin, they ask:

• What can we learn from informal processes and practices in South Asian and African cities to address social injustice and poverty here in the UK?
• What kinds of trans-national networks can support this work and how do they build solidarities amongst and within low income communities?
• What does this mean for the roles of academics in realising more just cities?

Guests:

Dr Melanie Lombard is a Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies and Planning and Urban Institute Associate at the University of Sheffield. She is particularly interested in urban informality, and urban land and conflict processes. She has explored these themes in cities in Mexico, Colombia, Ethiopia, Uganda and Nigeria. Before moving to the University of Sheffield in 2016, she taught at the University of Manchester’s Global Development Institute/Global Urban Research Centre (2010-2016). Her previous professional experience includes working in the UK social housing sector. She is a Trustee of CLASS (Community Led Action and Savings Support), a charity supporting the Manchester-based Community Savers network.

Professor Diana Mitlin works in the Global Development Institute | The University of Manchester. From 2020, Diana has been CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium. Diana’s work focuses on urban poverty reduction programmes and the contribution of co-production and collective action by low-income and otherwise disadvantaged groups. She has had a particular research focus on issues of urban basic services, tenure and housing.  Diana works closely with SDI (Slum/Shack Dwellers International), a trans-national network of homeless and landless people’s federations and NGOs.

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Studies and International Development in the School of Geography and Planning at the University of Sheffield. 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.

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.

If you want to know more about the research featured in this podcast, follow Sheffield Urbanism on LinkedIn, or bluesky, Instagram or visit www.sheffield.ac.uk/urban-institute

Email feedback to: [email protected]

Thanks to the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Sheffield for funding this podcast and the Creative Media Suite for recording facilities.

This month we are joined by Drs Christina Tatham & Cathy Wilcock for a post-summer bumper episode. 

First in England, many children are starting school for the first time, including those with English as a second language, against a backdrop of stubborn spatial inequalities in educational outcomes later in life (31:26). 

Then, in the face of civil war and conflict in Sudan, we dive into how urban communities in and beyond national borders are finding ways to build resilience and retain diaspora identities (52:20).  

And on our radar:

• Labubus & counterfeits in the city
• Local variations in policing protests
• Urban mining over time 
• Trump's 'take over' of Washington DC
• The symbolism of flags & roundabouts 
• How cities might survive the loss of their physical territory

Guests:

Dr Christina Tatham is a Lecturer in Early Childhood Education and has written widely on superdiversity and multilingualism in schools, including the use of creative methodologies and the importance of play.

Dr Cathy Wilcock is a post-doctoral researcher in the School of Geography and Planning whose work has focussed on Sudan, South Sudan and the formation and importance of diaspora communities, and music scenes.  

More:

The Pirate Function

Cities Rethought

Despite what The Atlantic says, Sudan is not locked in a war about nothing

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Studies and International Development in the School of Geography and Planning at the University of Sheffield. 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.

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.

If you want to know more about the research featured in this podcast, follow Sheffield Urbanism on LinkedIn, or bluesky, Instagram or visit www.sheffield.ac.uk/urban-institute

Email feedback to: [email protected]

Thanks to the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Sheffield for funding this podcast and the Creative Media Suite for recording facilities.

In this month’s feature, Beth and Tom are joined by Professors Nausheen Anwar and Mona Fawaz, Directors of the Karachi Urban Lab and Beirut Urban Lab respectively. This feature is a live recording of an in-person event on Urban Research Labs in Times of Conflict and Post-Truth, recorded in July as part of the Sheffield Urbanism Summer Programme. 

This was an ‘in conversation’ event during which Tom and Beth explored the challenges that Mona and Nausheen face running urban labs in the face of persistent conflict, misinformation and authoritarianism. The conversation ranges from the origin and motivation for establishing their research labs, to the ways in which they curate urban data as a public good for advocacy and activism, to some of the specific issues on which they work including housing crises, climate change and migration.

Guest biographies: 

Nausheen Anwar is the Founder and Director of the Karachi Urban Lab (KUL), which was set up in 2016 in a context where data production on the ‘urban’ in Pakistan remains top-down and largely technocratic. The KUL sees its role to fill a ‘gap’ in data/knowledge production from the ground up and in a critically oriented way. Nausheen is also a Professor of City & Regional Planning in the Department of Social Sciences & Liberal Arts (SSLA), IBA and Urban climate resilience lead and principal researcher, IIED's Human Settlements research group. 

Mona Fawaz is co-founder of the Beirut Urban Lab at the American University of Beirut, a regional research center invested in working towards more inclusive, just, and viable cities. The Lab produces scholarship on urbanization by documenting and analyzing ongoing transformation processes in Lebanon and its region's natural and built environments. It works towards materializing a vision of an ecosystem of change empowered by critical inquiry and engaged research, and driven by committed urban citizens and collectives. Mona is a Professor in Urban Studies and Planning at the American University of Beirut.

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Thanks to AbdouMaliq Simone and the Canadian Institute For Advanced Research Humanity's Urban Future programme for supporting the visit and podcast. 

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Studies and International Development in the School of Geography and Planning at the University of Sheffield. 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.

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.

If you want to know more about the research featured in this podcast, follow Sheffield Urbanism on LinkedIn, or bluesky, Instagram or visit www.sheffield.ac.uk/urban-institute

Email feedback to: [email protected]

Thanks to the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Sheffield for funding this podcast and the Creative Media Suite for recording facilities.

In this episode we are joined by Dr Katie Pruszynski and Professor Rowland Atkinson to explore how political and wealth elites are reshaping cities from New York to London and beyond. We dive into Zohran Mamdani's journey to becoming the Democratic Party's nominee for Mayor of New York City (25:10) and the pros and cons of increasing tax on the super-rich (47:26), through an urban political tour of truth and wealth.

Also on our radar:

• The loss of pubs  & representations of young people's urban lifestyles
• AI data centres & their potential in low income neighbourhoods
• The past & future of pickpocketing
• Ukrainian cities in reconstruction & resistance
• The urban impacts of extreme heat 
• Celebrities & urban development

Guests:

Dr Katie Pruszynski is a PhD graduate in Political Psychology from the School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield. She has written on Donald Trump's 'wedge lies' and the new American oligarchy.

Professor Rowland Atkinson is Chair in Inclusive Societies in the School of Geography and Planning and co-lead of the Urban Institute's Urban Riches theme  at the University of Sheffield. One of his many publications is Alpha City: How London Was Captured by the Super-Rich. 

Read More:

Ukrainians designing the future

Ukraine's strategic neutralization

Mind the Heat Gap

The Northern Agenda

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Studies and International Development in the School of Geography and Planning at the University of Sheffield. 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.

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.

If you want to know more about the research featured in this podcast, follow Sheffield Urbanism on LinkedIn, or bluesky, Instagram or visit www.sheffield.ac.uk/urban-institute

Email feedback to: [email protected]

Thanks to the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Sheffield for funding this podcast and the Creative Media Suite for recording facilities.

In this month's special feature, Tom and Beth are joined by Simon Marvin and Allan McCay to discuss how advances in neurotechnology - specifically Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) - are changing the way we think about urban infrastructures and human-technology relations in the city. 

We discuss:  

• How can we understand the complex and continuously changing relationship between cities and technology over the last few decades?
• What and where are the new frontiers of urban technology in light of neuro-technological advances, such as Brain Computer Interfaces?
• What are the legal and ethical implications for cities and residents of neurotechnological urbanism, and can science fiction prepare us for what’s to come? 

The feature is followed by a short reflection from Tom and Beth which also draws on an interdisciplinary workshop on Neurotechnically-enabled Urbanism which was hosted by the Urban Institute and the ESRC project 'Experimenting with robotics as a new urban infrastructure', led by Aidan While. 

Guests:

Dr Allan McCay is Co Director of The Sydney Institute of Criminology and an Academic Fellow at the University of Sydney Law School. His first coedited book is Free Will and the Law: New Perspectives (Routledge, 2019) and his second is Neurointerventions and the Law: Regulating Human Mental Capacity (Oxford University Press, 2020). 

Professor Simon Marvin is an internationally recognised academic with an excellent publication profile, with expertise in the changing relations between socio-technical networks and urban and regional restructuring.

Read more:

Elon Musk’s brain implant company offers an intriguing glimpse of an internet connecting human minds

Vulcan (page 38)

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Studies and International Development in the School of Geography and Planning at the University of Sheffield. 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.

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.

If you want to know more about the research featured in this podcast, follow Sheffield Urbanism on LinkedIn, or bluesky, Instagram or visit www.sheffield.ac.uk/urban-institute

Email feedback to: [email protected]

Thanks to the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Sheffield for funding this podcast and the Creative Media Suite for recording facilities.

In this month’s episode, we are joined by Jenny Preece to dive into the issue of building safety in the context of the recent anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire (22:33). Next, we consider trans rights in the context of Pride month and the impact of the UK’s recent Supreme Court ruling (38:40).

Also on our radar: 

• Bunkers and new forms of subterranean exclusion
• Urban festivals 
• Touristification and the commodification of cities
• The LA riots and urban stigma
• AI propaganda and AI protest
• Vape fires and the disposable vape ban

Dr. Jenny Preece is a Lecturer in the School of Geography and Planning at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on understanding housing choices and aspirations, particularly in changing contexts and with relevance to issues of constraint and exclusion. I am interested in people's lived experiences of home, and how people experience change, whether in the dwelling itself or the wider neighbourhood.

SJ Cooper-Knock is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations and School of Law at the University of Sheffield. Their work focuses on the politics of urban life in South Africa, including everyday policing and punishment; being and belonging in the city; the politics of crisis; and concepts of urban justice.

Read more:

Artificial Intelligence–Based Aesthetics of Dissent in Turkey

Preece, J. (2025) Inhabiting unsettlement: Living through building safety remediation works in England

Preece, J. and J. Flint. (2024). Unhoming, Trauma and Waiting: The Post-Grenfell Building Safety Crisis in England

Peter Apps (2022) - Show me the Bodies: How we let Grenfell happen.

Stuart Hodkinson (2019) - ‘Safe as houses: Private greed, political negligence and housing policy after Grenfell.’

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Studies and International Development in the School of Geography and Planning at the University of Sheffield. 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.

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.

If you want to know more about the research featured in this podcast, follow Sheffield Urbanism on LinkedIn, or bluesky, Instagram or visit www.sheffield.ac.uk/urban-institute

Email feedback to: [email protected]

Thanks to the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Sheffield for funding this podcast and the Creative Media Suite for recording facilities.