Urban Political Podcast

How do “peripheries” form? And how does urbanization generate processes of peripheralization? Today, urban research is increasingly confronted with processes of extended urbanization that unfold far beyond cities and agglomerations: novel patterns of urbanization are crystallizing in agricultural areas and in remote landscapes, challenging inherited conceptions of the urban as a bounded and dense...

Listen to this gripping account from the current „Woman Life Freedom“ movement in Iran and its impact on cities and its inhabitants. The movement was sparked by the killing of Mahsa Jina Amini in the custody of the Islamic regime’s „morality police“ in September 2022. After several weeks of uprising, the media coverage in Western countries has become more silent due in part to the extremely repres...

Having just celebrated the 10th anniversary of the important German-language journal for critical urban research, Ross speaks with sub\urban editorial members Gala Nettelbladt and Nina Gribat about why it is important to publish urban research in German, the challenge of organizing a horizontal editorial collective, of realizing an open access publication strategy, and of relating to political str...

The book provides an overview of ecologically conscious contemporary art that responds to today’s environmental crisis, from species extinction to climate change. Art and Climate Change collects a wide range of artistic responses to our current ecological emergency. When the future of life on Earth is threatened, creative production for its own sake is not enough. Through contemporary artworks, ar...

Urbanization has become central in recent political discourses, as well as a contested concept in experts' spheres. This podcast of the Urban Political delves into the phenomenon of urbanization and traces back how the idea of "expanding cities" is causing disagreement in urban studies and leading researchers to raise questions that have haunted the discipline since the times of Georg Simmel. In t...

The RC21 Conference 2022, “Ordinary cities in exceptional times,” was held in Athens from August, 24 to 26. A large group of participants from all over the world gathered for was the first in-person conference of the RC21 network since the start of the pandemic. However, the pandemic continued to dominate the conference with a number of participants being unable to travel to Athens due to the unce...

The 30th annual INURA Conference entitled "Small State Big Transitions” was held in Luxembourg from June 25 to 28. Over 60 participants gathered at the conference to learn about the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and to celebrate the 30 years INURA. This year’s conference was organised by the Urban Studies Group at the Department of Geography and Spatial Planning at the University of Luxembourg. With a...

This episode looks at urban landscapes of care and control that emerged during the pandemic in Santiago de Chile (Chile), Bogotá (Colombia) and Berlin (Germany). It is a comparative conversation on the urban impasse of state interventions and everyday logics under COVID19 in each of these cities and discusses the following questions: 1. How, if at all, has the pandemic affected state interventions...

In this episode moderated by Nitin Bathla, the author Colin McFarlane discusses his recent book Fragments of the City with the critics Theresa Enright, Tatiana Thieme, and Kevin Ward. In analyzing the main arguments of the book, Theresa discusses the role of aesthetics in imagining, sensing, and learning the urban fragments, and the ambivalence of density in how it enables and disables certain kin...

Social mix has become a central planning discourse worldwide to address urban inequalities and segregation as key urban problems of the 21st century. Far from being benevolent, the discourse of social mix and its related implementations are subjected to a fundamental critique highlighting racist underpinnings and consequences in targeted neighborhoods. The conversation draws on insights from Canad...

In this first episode of the Urban Concept series, Louis Volont (MIT, Boston) and Thijs Lijster (University of Groningen) discuss with Talja Blokland (Humboldt University, Berlin) the concepts of community and commons and consider implications for urban research and action. The series introduces key urban concepts and reflects on their relevance in the fields of theory, research and politics.

Listen to urban researchers sharing their insights on the situation in Ukrainian cities at war, from Kyiv, Kharkiv to Mariupol. Our guests discuss Putin's identity politics and the way his propaganda hits a wall in the context of the shelling of Ukrainian cities. Countering the images of an opposition of "Ukrainian vs Russian" inhabitants as a backdrop to the war, the discussants offer a different...

What do graffiti and street art do? This is the key question of the intriguing podcast conversation among Emma Arnold, Jeff Ross, and John Lennon. While we learn about the unruly and disruptive features of graffiti in urban space, our guests also trouble its effects by asking questions about its relation to gentrification, racialized capitalism and right-wing media strategy. Highlighting geographi...

On the 26th of September over million Berliners voted to expropriate and return to public ownership over 200,000 homes in the city. Deutsche Wohnen und Co Enteignen targeted a number of large real estate companies in Berlin that had control of what had previously been social housing stock. The referendum is not legally binding, requiring the support of the governing parties in the Berlin parliamen...

In this episode we give you exclusive insights into the RC21 conference 2021 Antwerp. Our guests share their experiences from sessions, keynotes, and discussions on this year's main theme of 'Sensing and Shaping the City'.

After discussing expropriation efforts in Berlin recently, this episode will widen the discussion of housing commons to perspectives, differences, and potentials in Europe and the US.

‘How can academic research be of service to envisioning alternative planning agendas that reflect the realities of the so-called Global South?’ is the central question that our guest host Inhji Jon stresses in this episode.

Green cities and green infrastructure have become common planning practices. But why is nature good and how does green matter? Do all people have equal access to nature, or are some left out of contemporary climate planning?

After Andrej Holm delved into the history of 'Mietendeckel', the rent cap legislation in Berlin, in the previous episode on contemporary housing struggles in Berlin, in this episode Joanna Kusiak explores grassroots activism of 'Deutsche Wohnen & Co enteignen' (Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co).

This episode, we discuss the social and political consequences of last week's rent cap ("Mietendeckel") ruling of the German Federal Constitutional Court with Andrej Holm. We explore the history of the Mietendeckel, rising rents, and growing housing activism in Berlin that led to the legislation in the first place. We debate the effects the rent cap had on rents, the housing market and what it mea...

This podcast explores how the pandemic is changing density around the world and generating forms of politics. With a diverse group of scholars and practitioners from around the world, the podcast addresses the following specific questions/ themes: How should density be conceived and why is it important to understanding cities (and the pandemic)? What is the pandemic doing to different forms of den...

The transatlantic slave trade had a lasting impact not only on the development of big ports like Liverpool, London, Nantes or Bordeaux, but also in cities that far less frequently associated with slavery. In this episode, four researcher-activists from Bremen and Lancaster speak about how slavery is not just a bygone period of cruel practices far away. Our guests reveal the involvement of these pl...

Emerging film-makers and urban researchers Nitin Bathla, Sandra Jasper, and Tino Buchholz speak about their avenues into film-production, why film amounts to a vital medium for urban research, and what it would mean to enhance its role in urban studies. This episode is also full of urban film inspirations and recommendations!

Amidst the rapidly unfolding ecological crisis, current research is witnessing ever new financial strategies that aim at making money from urban climate risks. In this episode Hanna Hilbrandt invites Emma Colven, Zac Taylor, Sarah Knuth, and Sage Ponder, to discuss the financial and socio-material limits to the viability of urban financialization in the context of climate change. When climate disa...