Urban Studies

Ideal for researchers and practitioners looking for fresh approaches to transport problems, this book combines cutting-edge qualitative and qualitative knowledge to inform transport futures. It uses engaging case studies based in The Gambia and the US to show how and why a transdisciplinary approach can result in better planning decisions.

This book charts the rise and fall of the ‘sharing economy’, the controversial lobbying tactics used by the central companies and the backlash seen so far. It offers key policy recommendations and presents state-of-the-art knowledge around the past, present and future of the platform economy.

Spatial planning is at a crossroads, with nearly half of UK planners now employed in the private sector. This book reveals what it’s like to be a UK planner in the early 21st century and how the profession can fulfil its potential for the benefit of society and the environment.

Contrasting London with Hong Kong, this book tells the story of the two cities’ public and private sector forms of public space governance. The authors consider the challenges and impacts that different forms of provision have on those with a stake in them, and on the cities as a whole.

This book provides an introductory overview to the concept of ‘urban informality’, taking an international perspective across the global North and South. It explores theoretical understandings of the term, and looks at how it affects ways of living, such as land use, housing and basic services, working lives and political informality.

This book explores the connections between race, place and space, and their role in maintaining racial hierarchies. Focusing on White residents in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, it employs interviews, participant observation and content analysis to unveil the enduring racial inequality in this supposedly progressive area.

In a time of increasing social and economic inequality, this book illustrates the precarity experienced by millennials facing both rising rents and wage stagnation. Featuring the voices of those with lived experience of precarity, the book reveals the crucial role of British housing policies in deepening inter- and intra-generational injustice.

This topical book offers an analysis of the current state of the planning system in England and an evidence-based review of over a decade of change. With a critique of ongoing UK planning reforms, the book argues that the planning system is often blamed for a range of issues that are in fact the fault of ineffective policymaking.

Drawing on ethnographic research in urban growing projects in Glasgow, this book explores community dynamics and asks who benefits from such projects. A timely consideration of localism and community empowerment, the book sheds light on key issues of light on key issues of urban land use, the right to the city and the value of social connection.

Detroit is the first city of its size to become bankrupt and policy-makers have argued that, since then, it has entered a ‘new beginning’. This book analyses whether Detroit’s patterns of inequality on race and class lines still exist and whether the city is truly reversing its decline.

A buoyant, creative economy can be seen as the saviour of many cities, but behind such ‘urban makeovers’ lie serious problems such as widening inequalities and gentrification. Blending lively city case studies with broader theoretical debates, this book explores the opportunities for a more just and sustainable urban future.

The past three decades have seen an international ‘turn to participation’ – letting those who will be affected by neighbourhood planning outcomes play an active role in decision-making. This innovative analysis brings theory, research, and practice together and gives insights into how and why citizen voices either become effective or get excluded.