Lecturers & Staff

Keywords: transformations of social space, urban interventions

Globalization, transnationalism, migrations and transformations of urban spaces: The impact of transnationalization, and more specifically, of transnational migrations in specific urban spaces; the constitution of migrants communities, diasporas and neighborhoods in urban spaces; the interethnic and intra-ethnic relations and the changes in urban neighborhoods; households of migrants and the feelings of “home”;  the constitution of ethnic clusters and economies; the transnational urbanism perspective and the analysis of the urban changes; the feelings of belonging and non-belonging, the urban uprootings and re-groundings in a global context. All these shifts can be considered in relation with the current period of crisis and change

Transnational families and households in urban spaces: Recently, it has been shown the emergence of different kinds of transnational families and households that, despite the spatial dispersion of some of its members, continue to maintain regular relations between them and a certain notion of being a domestic unit. Therefore, students are invited to examine any of the following topics: What forms adopts these households in cities like Brussels, Vienna, Copenhagen and Madrid; how these households  are configured on a multi-scale level, and how are involved in their constitution factors of each scale, from the local to the global; how are reconfigured the productive and reproductive activities inside these families and households, and what are the consequences in the urban spaces; how are re-articulated the relations between these households, the public policies, the markets, and the other aspects of local urban life in the different urban spaces; what trajectories of change follow these households; where are located the households with which they maintain a regular contact and a sense of unit; what shifts take place in the gender and intergenerational relations inside these households; how it takes place within these households distance relationships among its members; how these relationships are articulated with those that take place in the spaces of proximity; and what forms of virtual and face-to-face communication use their members in order to keep in contact and  reproduce the  network of transnational or global households as a domestic unit.

The analysis of the urban spaces from a gender and intersectional perspective: Gender perspective and urban spaces. Gendered spaces in the city: social practices and symbolic and imaginary representations. Gender and places. Intersectional perspective and the examination of the interactions between social agents with different social origins, ages or gender in public urban spaces. Ages of the city: changes along the life course. Disability, accessibility and dependency. Mobilities, immobilities and social practices by gender, age and other diversities.

The higher education students in the urban spaces: It is possible to exam the following topics: the changes in the volume of students of higher education; their socio-demographic characteristics -with special attention to their age, gender, social and educational familiar background, forms of livelihood, etc.-; their academic characteristics –area of their studies, type of university, etc.-; dedication to their studies and work; forms of accommodation and household; social conditions of life in the city; internal an international mobility. All these topics should be studied from a comparative approach, taking into consideration the cases of Vienna, Brussels, Copenhagen and Madrid, and in relation to the changes that have taken place in the last years.

Keywords: urban studies, culture and economic development, tourism, nature and development

Urban tourism: Since the Grand Tour in the eighteenth and nineteenth century tourism has been an innate activity in cities, mainly in those which has an important cultural heritage and has been traditionally considered as ‘historic cities’. However, it has not been until the last decades when tourism has acquired an important presence in the political, economic, social, cultural and special urban life. Due to this new public presence of tourism, deeper researches are need in the relationships between urban dynamics and tourism sector in many different aspects, as for instance: a) tourism as an urban economic sector; b) cultural and monumental heritage and tourism; c) tourists and the use of public space; d) social and cultural implications of tourism.

Urban cultural sustainability: Although the cultural dimension has been traditionally accepted as one of the main pillar of sustainability, environmental and physical viewpoints have traditionally dominated this scientific approach to cities. Due to this predominance of these aspects, deeper researches are needed in relation with a huge array of concepts and processes directly related with the role of culture in the processes of urban sustainable development, such as heritage, cultural capital, identity and sense, how to measure sustainability and so on.

Cultural industries and urban city centres: In the last decades culture has begun to be considered as an important economic sector. Form an urban point of view, this change has entailed that apart from been promoted as a social right through equipments and facilities, culture is considered a strategic sector for the regeneration of the urban city centres. Among other important issues, it is crucial to understand a) how these cultural actors and micro-companies cluster to develop a chain of value; and b) how some characteristic cultural urban activities such as theatre, music, cinema and so on could improve the cities centres for an geographical, social and economic point of view.

City image and urban marketing: Among many other aspects, the globalisation and liberalization of the economy has meant that cities have become important actors in the global economic competition. For this reasons, cities are using the traditional process of marketing to promote or ‘sell’ themselves in a global market, to attract investors, companies, visitors, events and so on. This process involves reflecting and research about a) the traditional image conveyed by a city and b) how it has been use/modify/change for the new economic purpose; as well as c) the means used to convey new images and d) their social, cultural and geographical effects.

Keywords: financial geography, urban political economy, economic geography, world/global cities

Research themes:

• Geographies of FinTech and Big Tech
• Geographies of Islamic Finance
• Geographies of the Circular Economy
• Geographies of Foundational Urban Systems
• Geographies of European Financial Integration
• Geographies of World-City Formation

Research Methods: interviews, document analysis, narratives and numbers approaches, social network analysis, follow the money techniques

Urban governance, policies and politics:

• The changing politics of planning and urban development in European cities, with a particular focus on new forms of urban entrepreneurialism, urban marketing and urban governance (UK, France, Germany, Spain)
• The contested politics of urban regeneration in European cities
• The combination of “culturalist” and “materialist” approaches in urban political economy
• European spatial planning and European Union policies with a territorial impact:
• The impact of the EU on spatial planning, regional development and urban policies across Europe
• The European agenda on spatial planning and territorial cohesion
• European cross-border and transnational cooperation networks between cities and regions (e.g. INTERREG programmes), and their impact on policy learning and cognitive Europeanisation

Comparative planning:

• Comparative spatial planning cultures and systems in Europe / the transformation of planning systems and practices
• Devolution, decentralization and spatial planning in “contested” states (UK/Spain/Belgium)

Urban sociology:

• The impact of urban and planning policies on gentrification, segregation, “diversity” and social mix in European cities
• Urban social movements and social mobilizations surrounding planning and urban regeneration issues
• Neighbourhood planning and public participation in planning processes

Keywords: urban policies, urban politics, governance and participation, innovation

Urban policies and politics: Urban policies are more than local policies, since they can be designed and implemented at different levels of government (local, regional, national and supranational) and they are not only planning policies, but all the policies that are involved in the production of urban social space (Housing, Education, Health..). We are interested in how those policies are designed, implemented and overall politically justified, in order to realize the differences and similarities across times, cities and countries and the existence or absence of a city model. The analysis of urban policy narratives as well as the focus on the policy coherence are perspectives more than welcome.

Urban governance and political conflict: Urban governance is the complex system of including spaces of participation in the development of urban decisions. According to Ansell and Gash (2008: 544): ‘[a] governing arrangement where one or more public agencies directly engage non-governmental actors in a collective decision-making process that is formal, consensus-oriented, and deliberative and that aims to make or implement public policy or manage public programs or assets’. In that sense, we would like to explore the consensus and dissensus moments of urban decision makers. Moreover, we are also particularly interested in those new social and urban activisms which are exceeding the capability of those consensus and deliberative spaces from perspectives of radical democracy, reinventing and appropriating spaces and also producing new urban policy perspectives.

Inequality and the right to the city: Inequality and its spatial expressions in city are two relevant study objects, but also the appearance of new civic claims and demands to revert them. The right to the city could be studied through the analysis of new civic approaches to fight socially against the effects of inequality, the analysis of new initiatives to create new types of social space in urban contexts, and the understanding of new narratives about urban rights.

Urban Innovations: Innovation is a complex concept, attached to different purposes, meanings, instruments and interactions. Innovation is a transversal principle of local government areas, but it is also included in new ways of searching for social answers to urban problems. Since cities are considered sites of experimentation and live labs, new topics about how innovation is imagined, designed and produced in urban spaces by a wide range of actors is relevant nowadays. Looking at the coherence of innovative actions, the capability of incentive them, and the production of fragmented spaces are topics that should be analysed using comparative and longitudinal perspectives.

Tatiana’s current research includes work on spatial dimensions of artistic activities (e.g. artists’ studios and art galleries, arts districts), historical and contemporary urban dynamics (e.g. gentrification processes), narrative cartography (fictional literature as a source for geographers), and historical mapping (geolocation).

Keywords: segregation, inequality, urban identity, city centre, migration, children, public space

City Marketing and Urban Identity: Globalization has caused the need for the external promotion of cities and the creation of new local identities. That impact on the exterior and interior of the city, allows some social sectors identify themselves with these new identities and others feel excluded. This process affects both the population and the economic sectors that are attracted by these new identities. In this sense, we study the population and commercial gentrification and new images. Thus also immigration and urban identity is developed.  Migration processes have led to new projects in our cities new problems of coexistence between old and new citizens.

Urban regeneration and population changes: The industrial crisis has generated new scenarios that should respond through urban policies regeneration by the public, private or partnership institutions which generate new tensions and conflicting dynamics with citizens.  It seems that new social sectors are favored by these policies and others who are excluded. The analysis of “who are these policies for” is the focus of interest.

Vulnerable groups in the city: children, women: Cities are designed and aimed at groups of economic and symbolic centrality and they usually exclude groups such as women, children, immigrants, elderly, disabled, etc. We research about how to empower these sectors and analyze experiences and measures to do so.

Public space and the city: Public spaces in the city are the essence of the city, those spaces where the mixture, the difference, opening the encounter with the other, take place. Social practices in the public space (squares, streets, public facilities, etc.) of the various groups in the city (women, children, immigrants, visitors, tourists, etc.) we are interested in assessing the significance that the city acquired its meaning as meeting and mixing.

Sociology of tourism and the city: The impact of tourism in the city is connected with the new urban identities that promote the city and in addition to new images of middle and creative classes that make the culture and entertainment central. In this sense, the analysis of equipment and travel services serves to connect these with the new urban identities and their impact on the total of the city. in this same line, also we are interested in the analysis of urban historical centres and external identity projection.

Keywords: surveillance, securitisation and fear; intersectional geographies; informal production of space; participatory action research or research-by-design; perspectives from the south

Keywords: urban geography & planning, neighbourhood development, gentrification, public space, integration policies, governance, social innovation, practice approach, urban living labs The emergence of new “arrival spaces”: The century of urbanization is characterized by established and newly emerging migration patterns. The process of “arriving to a city” becomes more complex and multi-layered as cities are not only growing by population, but they also face challenges with regard to housing shortage, gentrification processes and the need for multiple integration policies. Besides education and workplaces, the urban housing market is of crucial relevancy for the “arriving population”. Critical reflection is needed on the availability, accessibility and affordability of housing for new residents in order to assess the limitations of “arrival spaces” in cities. The impact of social innovation in neighbourhood development: Social innovation has been an emerging concept across policy, practice and academia to overcome societal challenges by collaborative practices between civil society, private stakeholders and public actors. The basic understanding of social innovation can be broken down to “any co-created innovation closing the gap of public welfare state service and contributing to a societal benefit”. When it comes to urban studies and more precisely to socio-spatial analyses, the questions arises: How does social innovation impact neighbourhood development? This thesis aims at a better conceptual understanding on social innovation in neighbourhood development, the involved actors and framework conditions, as well as at the development of “social innovation proxies” to identify and measure the potential of social innovation at the local scale. The role of public spaces for socially cohesive neighbourhoods: Living quality and human wellbeing have come under increased pressure in “successful cities” due to population growth, physical densification, economic valorisation, limited open space and an increased vulnerability to climate change. More than ever, public spaces have become increasingly important as spaces for leisure and relaxation, but even more importantly as spaces for (daily) appropriations, democratic participation and spaces of encounter in diversifying societies. The core interest in this field of research asks how public space can contribute to creating cities that are more ecologically, economically AND socially resilient.

Keywords: urban planning, transdisciplinary research, decarbonization, climate change, transition, street design, complexity, psychogeography, cinema, visual geography

Engaging the unsolvable in planning theory & practice: Wicked problems are those that may be unsolvable for reasons of complexity, uncertainty, or disagreement. However, many wicked problems such as climate change or social injustice demand responses at the level of urban planning, which tends to be solutions-oriented. This begs the question, how can a solutions-oriented field effectively engage essentially unsolvable problems? Research in this area is often transdisciplinary, involving complexity theories and systems perspectives.

Radical approaches to post-carbon transition: Fossil fuels are sufficiently embedded into modern global systems (economic, political, and social) for sociologist John Urry to have written that “burning fossil fuels to generate heat, power and movement is the most significant feature of the modern world.” The global community appears to now be forced to choose between runaway climate change and rapid decarbonization, and either option is fraught with almost unfathomable implications. Focusing on the latter, what are the consequences of decarbonization? How might urban society be reshaped by this socio-technical transition, and what alternatives to the current “carbon regime” are feasible or desirable?

Psychogeography: At its most basic level, psychogeography is the study of how the spatial affects the psychological. With ecelctic roots in literature, philosophy, art, architecture, semiotics, and of course psychology and geography, psychogeographic research typically examines how interpretations of space and design impact emotional states and social practices, exposing in the process the fact that design generally and spatial interventions in particular are never neutral. Research methods include various forms of urban exploration, documentation, and visualization.

Realities & representations in visual geography: Geography, whether human or physical, is an inherently visual discipline. Visual geography is an emerging sub-discipline concerned with the depiction of spaces and spatially embedded practices in visual media such as film, photography, and painting. Cities, in cinema, are frequently both setting and character, and the ways in which cities perform and are peformed in films can either open up new ways of seeing and understanding or reify stereotypes and simplifications. Research casts a critical lens on the framing process of visual art in order to expose the implications of observed-observer dynamics: the what, where, who, how, why, and so what of place-performance.

Keywords: urban tourism, cultural heritage, industrial heritage and education and new technologies

Keywords: urban alternatives, critical urban geography, the right to the city, critical transport, fare-free public transport, citizen participation, participatory budgeting

Keywords: sustainable urban development; urban sustainability transformations; SDG implementation; social-ecological-technical interactions; impacts of global environmental change and digital change on cities; user-centric integrative solutions

Urban sustainability transformations: Global Environmental Change intensively impacts on cities in multiple ways and scales. At the same time, cities also highly contribute to the aggravation of environmental problems. Thus, recent developments, including also digitalisation and technologies, bear both, opportunities and challenges for cities. Complex interactions need to be addressed and evaluated in terms of sustainability criteria (e.g. according to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)) to develop solutions towards sustainable urban development. This relates to concepts such as sustainability transformations, resilience, urban vulnerability, ecosystem services, and urban circularity.

Holistic approaches, socio-ecological-technical interactions, user-centric solutions and transdisciplinarity play a key role. Urban living labs, co-design, co-production, indicator development, and assessment systems are essential methods.

Keywords: comparative urbanism, housing policy, education, internationalisation, infrastructure

Urban housing markets and housing policies: From pre-industrial times, housing shortage has been an endemic problem of cities. In the era of the welfare state, relief has come from national housing policies. With neoliberalisation, urban housing is being re-commercialized, and housing interventions are re-scaled downwards to the urban and regional levels – making comparative studies of selected urban housing sectors within the same nation-state or welfare regime, or between different states and welfare regimes a revealing field of research.

Internationalisation of higher education: The 4CITIES Master is part and parcel of a global phenomenon, the internationalisation of tertiary education. There are 3 million international students today, a mere 2% of all students worldwide. Within Europe, the  percentage is much higher, but most of it is intra-European mobility. The life-time repercussions of being internationally mobile are wide-ranging, but under-researched: from transnational ways of working and living, to international career patterns, to expat retirement colonies. Much of these lives has an urban focus, and offers avenues for innovation, travelling concepts and inspiration, sometimes frustration. At Vienna University, we have a large body of transcribed interviews with international students that could be used as a starting point for comparison.

Urban infrastructure in global cities: Despite globalisation, the material infrastructure of cities is highly uneven, even amongst European cities. Due to the longevity of investments, supply and cost of water, energy, transport etc. is deeply rooted/embedded in specific urban political/planning history. Infrastructure of different age, dimension and importance could be subject of comparative research, from tramway lines and Wi-Fi hotspots to waste collection and cash-machines. Even pre-industrial infrastructure is being utilized again, as cultural heritage and tourist attraction, think of aqueducts and fortifications.  As a global city, the quality of a city’s infrastructure is contributing to its attractiveness as a place for investment, hence to its competitiveness.

Urban social spaces – dreams and expressions of society – Siegfried Kracauer: “Spatial images are the dreams of society. Wherever the hieroglyphics of any spatial image are deciphered, there the basis of social reality presents itself.” This program for a critical analysis of social spaces was outlined by German cultural critic Siegfried Kracauer (1889–1966) in his essay “On Employment Agencies” from the early 1930s (transl. published in Neil Leach [ed.], Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory [London: Routledge, 1997]). The idea of spatial analysis as a source for social understanding is still valid and should be adapted to present realities in city and society. A comparative analysis of, for instance, employment agencies in two or more of our 4Cities would allow for theoretical and empirical discussions with Kracauer and other critical urban sociologists. Other social spaces could be analyzed as well. On Kracauer’s urban analysis, see Henrik Reeh, Ornaments of the Metropolis: Siegfried Kracauer and Modern Urban Culture (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2006)

Moving in the City – perceiving urban space: On optical and tactical reception: Human perception of urban and architectural spaces is usually considered in terms of visuality. But seeing and looking is just one aspect of spatial perception. In his ground–breaking essay on “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility”, German philosopher and cultural historian Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) points out that the reception of architecture and urban space also involves a tactile or tactical dimension, which, however, tends to escape representation. How should one represent the non–visual elements of spatial experiences? Apart from being a basic theoretical issue, this question forms a radical challenge in contemporary urban and cultural studies which are increasingly pervaded by visual media such as digital photography, whereas the bodily and non–visual experiences remain in the background. In order to rebalance and rethink the relation between optical and tactical approaches to urban space, it is vital to explore the fundamental forms of movement in an urban environment: walking, biking, driving, flying… Space is not the same when you walk as when you ride your bicycle, take the bus or the metro, the car or the train. In this way, the multiple layers and aspects of urban space may be addressed, as well as criteria for assessing the social and aesthetic qualities of a city may be defined anew – to the benefit of urban culture and improvisation. Brussels, Vienna, Copenhagen and Madrid are there to provide precise urban spaces and movements for analysis and comparison.

Literature and micro–sociology of urban domesticity: French writer Georges Perec (1936–1982) wrote a 700 page novel, Life: A User’s Manual (La vie Mode d’emploi [1978]) as a puzzle on the inner life of an apartment building in Paris. Apart from indicating new perspectives to contemporary literature, Perec also demonstrated how literature may serve the cause of a sociological and human understanding of the life that takes place behind the façades of a metropolis. All sorts of private and semi–private but also semi–public spaces are addressed and translated into a myriad of stories which form part of a new unity, recalling that of the apartment building. Perec’s novel provides an original approach to aspects of urban culture which are rarely taken into account by urban studies. In this way, his book outlines ways in which the dialog between private and public spaces, i.e. between private and public life, may be taken into account by scholars in urban studies – scholars who are not literary writers but who, nonetheless, could learn from artistic and other qualitative approaches to the heterogeneous urbanity of modern times.

Art, ethnology, urban culture: Sophie Calle: French contemporary artist Sophie Calle (b. 1953) is operating like a detective in the city. She doesn’t track criminals but obscure habits of ordinary citizens, hidden aspects of urban civilization and strange human relations in the city. In this way she also becomes an ethnologist which may inspire non–artistic explorations of urban environments and social contrasts. A point of departure is to be found, for instance, in Calle’s two books involving Venice: Suite vénitienne and The Hotel, both of which exist in English translations. Apart from situating these works in the context of contemporary art, a Master’s thesis provides the occasion for transposing and rethinking Calle’s methods for the benefit of urban cultural analysis. In this way, artistic projects may prove useful for the interpretation of urban reality in new and revelatory ways.

Suburban places and mobilities: the hidden Metropolis: French writer, publisher and social critic François Maspéro (b. 1932) left Paris for a month in order to travel the suburban social landscapes between the Paris Airport Charles de Gaulle in Roissy and the French Capital itself. This experiment formed the basis of his 1990–book of observations and photographs, Les passagers du Roissy–Express (UK–translation: Roissy Express: A Journey Through the Paris Suburbs [London: Polity Press, 1994]) which provides a possible point of departure of a Master’s thesis on the relation between places and spaces, between nodes and flows in suburban regions surround the iconic cities of Brussels, Vienna, Copenhagen and Madrid. How may the everyday life of suburban citizens contribute to the representation of the contemporary metropolis? How may the symbolic frontier between the city centre and the anonymous suburban regions be overcome? A 2014–reinterpretation of Maspéro’s experiment, including discussions of sociological and literary methodologies, might contribute decisively to our understanding of citiscapes of the 21st century.

Migropolis – mapping the contemporary metropolis: Together with his students from the University of Venice, German philosopher and photographer Wolfgang Scheppe (b. 1955) recently published an extraordinary book on the other side of the city of Venice. Thus, a city of migration, of human work, of tourism as an economic condition of contemporary urban culture is revealed which challenges the traditional image of Venice. Migropolis / Venice: Atlas of a Global Situation (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2009) is a 1340–page inquiry into the global networks coming together in the particular context of Venice. The issues at stake as well as the methodologies developed are relevant to many scholars of contemporary urbanity. A Master’s thesis could deal with the theoretical and methodological foundations of Scheppe’s book and put them to a critical test in the context of other cities of migration: Brussels, Vienna, Copenhagen and Madrid. In this way, the city as an often invisible or ignored stage of migration may be mapped and represented in critical and inventive ways.

Keywords: Belgium, diversity, enclave urbanism, fear, geographies of education, geographies of encounter, in-depth interviews, privilege, publication strategies, qualitative research, segregation, social mix, solidarity, South Africa, suburbs, urbanity, whiteness Solidarity in superdiverse cities: Drawing on (participatory) observations, interviews and/or focus groups with people who live, work, play or learn together in superdiverse places, you look for innovative forms of solidarity which develop around the shared use of these places. Depending upon your interests, these places could be schools, parks, factories, sports fields or neighborhood centers, office towers, social housing estates, … in several European cities. How can solidarity be nurtured amongst people who do not have anything in common apart from the place that they share? Do innovative forms of solidarity develop around the joint appropriation and the envisaged common future of shared places? Encounters in enclaves: Over the last two decades, the global spread of enclosed, mono-functional areas has inspired scholars in the field of urban studies to proclaim the materialization of a new urban geography characterized by enclavism. This ‘enclave urbanism’ is marked by the hardening of socio-spatial boundaries by means of walls, fences and booms and by the imposition of socio-legal agreements and specific governance regimes within the resulting enclaves. Researchers and policy-makers are worried that enclave urbanism inhibits face-to-face encounters with poverty and diversity. They wonder how empathy for inequality and social problems will be engendered if it is never or rarely experienced. Drawing on in-depth interviews with residents of different European cities, you could answer the following questions: does the adoption of enclave urbanism impede all encounters across lines of class, culture and/or ethnicity, indeed? Or do face-to-face encounters inside and in between enclaves still have the potential to challenge the stereotypes of privileged residents? Diversity in the suburbs: The literature on migration and superdiversity is largely based on case-studies in metropolitan areas. Both in popular discourses and in academic texts, ethnic and cultural diversity is closely related to urbanity. Statistics demonstrate, however, that ethnic minorities are more and more present in suburban areas as well. Drawing on in-depth interviews with suburban residents and/or qualitative analyses of articles in local newspapers, I would like you to investigate how the growing ethnic and cultural diversity in the suburbs is dealt with by different groups of people. Are the newcomers excluded from the social and cultural life in the suburbs? Or does contact among different kinds of people confirm or shatter existing stereotypes?

Keywords: urban sociology, cultural sociology, ethnic- and migration studies, qualitative methods

The diversity of work in the creative and cultural industries: The creative cultural industries flourish in diverse cities like Brussels, Vienna, Copenhagen and Madrid. However, little in-depth studies have been done on how these industries work in practice and their social and spatial embeddedness in the broader urban environment. I invite the students to fill this gap in the literature and to do an ethnography of a creative district/neighborhood (such as Richard Lloyd’s Neo-bohemia about a hipster neighborhood), of a specific cultural industry like theater, music, architecture, or dance (such as David Grazian’s Blue Chicago about the Chicago blues), or of a specific cultural organization or initiative (such as Claudio Benzecry’s The Opera Fanatic on the Colón Opera House in Buenos Aires) in order to analyze the internal diversity of the creative sector/institution/neighborhood in all of its facets.

The governance of (newcomer) migrants and/or diversity in cities: Although the governance of migrants has increasingly become an urban phenomenon, many social science studies still analyze this phenomenon from a nation-state perspective. However, there is a growing need to study empirically the internal variations of citizenship ideologies and institutional practices of migrant or diversity management on the ground in cities. I invite students to study these particular urban social practices using ethnographic methods, interviewing and discourse analysis in a (arrival) neighbourhood, or in a specific institution for migration management like newcomer reception offices, asylum centers or immigration offices.

The relation between social interactions and the built environment in cities: Authors like William Whyte, Lyn Lofland, and Jane Jacobs have all studied how the built environment of plazas, subway stations, etc. influenced the social interactions between people in these public spaces. In this regard, Jacobs speaks of a ‘sidewalk ballet’ on the streets of her native New York. I invite students to study ethnographically how the urban infrastructures or the spatial organization of a place impacts social relationships between city dwellers across ethnic and social borders in public transportation, public squares, shops, etc. In this regard, it would be interesting to compare places in order to evaluate what works best under which conditions from a critical urban planning perspective.

Keywords: energy poverty; low-carbon transitions; environmental justice; climate change; housing; collective action; street art

Inequalities and vulnerabilities in household energy use: Urban regions and economies are central to global decarbonization efforts, yet significant inequalities persist in meeting essential household energy needs. Research examines these disparities through the concepts of domestic energy poverty and vulnerability – as well as transport poverty – which describe material deprivation resulting from insufficient access to critical energy services like indoor climate control, mobility, cooking, or powering household appliances. Since cities account for over 70% of global energy use and carbon emissions, there is a pressing need for research and policy to address the dual challenge of swiftly transforming urban energy systems to address the climate crisis while ensuring justice in the energy transitions, particularly for those striving to meet their basic daily energy requirements.

Environmental justice: paving the path to equitable and inclusive urban environments: Environmental conditions in cities exhibit disparities across income, gender, ethnicity, and age, resulting in intricate socio-economic patterns of exposure to urban environmental goods and bads. Consequently, urban sustainability interventions and urban greening or regeneration projects need to be carefully appraised through an equity lens to better understand and prevent (un)intended effects on previously vulnerable or excluded populations. With over half of the global population residing in urban areas and this trend expected to rise, integrating environmental justice into urban sustainability decision-making is an urgent necessity – for which research must supply the conceptual and analytical tools needed for transitioning towards greener, fairer, and more inclusive cities.

Street art and urban public space: Street art is gaining recognition as a prominent form of creative expression, particularly in urban environments. It converts public spaces into platforms for self-expression and social and cultural commentary, challenging conventional ideas of property and public engagement. While enhancing a city’s identity and sense of place, it raises questions about its aesthetics, legality, and cultural legitimacy – and may also contribute to gentrification or the disruption of existing communities, thus altering the social landscape of neighborhoods. This complex interplay between artistic expression and urban life demands a critical examination of the role of street art in reshaping the visual and social fabric of cities.

My research interests are situated in the field of critical urban studies. It explores five main (inter-related) themes, namely: the production of space in the neoliberal city; spatial dimensions of social domination; gentrification (processes, policies, and ways to resist it); alternative urban policies and urbanizations from below. Keywords: urban political economy, neoliberal city, gentrification, urban policies, urbanizations from below Research methods: qualitative fieldwork, cartography, statistical analysis

Keywords: cultural political economy, cultural policy, cultural and creative industries, state theory, experimentation, social innovation, smart cities, urban theory Elite cities: There is a strong tradition in urban studies of focusing on marginalised populations and the various (social, economic, political, cultural) exclusions that shape our cities. Much less is known about the economic elites (upper middle class, the ‘super-rich’) as the prime beneficiaries of contemporary economic globalisation and the ways in which various types of elites structure and transform urban spaces. It would be particularly interesting to see more research on the lifeworlds and lifestyles of elite inhabitants that focuses on: a) urban leisure activities (sports, the arts, consumption); b) housing (private investment and speculation, gated communities, property development and renovation); and c) education (private education, boarding schools, individual tutoring, school and university rankings). Higher education and urban development: Research on higher education and urban development has so far mainly focused on the economic impact of higher education institutes and has only started addressing the wider social relations that link higher education to the city. More research is needed in particular on the following issues: a) in-depth analysis of concrete university-community projects; b) discipline-specific dynamics of research and public engagement; c) the role of higher education institutes in property development and master planning; d) architecture and the built environment of higher education. Cultural and creative industries: The discussion on the role of the cultural and creative industries to urban development has led to many publications that aim to map the location of these industries in order to point to local clusters and to investigate the value chains that are characteristic for different cultural and creative industries sectors. Although important, the following elements are under-researched and deserve more attention: a) the relation between creativity and social innovation; b) cultural and creative industries in peripheral cities and regions; c) the role of micro-firms and independent workers in various cultural and creative sectors; d) the relation between paid, underpaid and unpaid/voluntary labour in shaping urban labour regimes; e) socio-economic diversity and the cultural and creative industries.

Keywords: Surveillance, urban infrastructure, datafication, digital technology, domesticity, tech abuse, cultural theory, feminist theory

Keywords: governance, social innovation, urban policy and regeneration, participation, social exclusion, and in general the consequences of urban evolution for society

Keywords: Urban Food Policies, Food Security, Agroecology, Participatory Research, Local Food Systems, Degrowth

My primary research interests revolve around the conceptualization and development of urban food policies. Broadly, these encompass three key areas:

The literary café: A comparison of the Viennese Kaffeehaus-Literatur and the literature connected to the Copenhagen Café Bernina: The interplay between private life and public in the café; the café as the home of the flaneur or the urban stroller; the feuilleton as an urban genre; literary style as an expression of urban modes of perception; the general question of literary architecture.

The museum and the city: The birth of the modern urban museum took place in the beginning of the 19th century (British Museum in London, Altes Museum in Berlin, Thorvaldsens Museum in Copenhagen). The first museums were truly urban buildings, erected in the core of the old city. During the 20th century the process of suburbanization also influenced the location of museums (Louisiana). Since the turn of the millennium however museums – and the whole question of the city and collective memory – have created a new interest in the relation between the inner city and museums. And at the same time inter-urban competition has led to still more spectacular or iconic museum architecture (Bilbao). Thus, a close and comparative study of museums in one of our “four cities” or other European cities would offer a splendid opportunity to trace historical and contemporary trends in the relation between urban life and cultural heritage.

Transparency: With its use of glass and steel the Crystal Palace of the first world’s fair in London 1851 marked a break-through in modern architecture. In 1914 Paul Scheerbart and Bruno Taut wrote and built a manifesto for glass-architecture, and architects such as Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe made the glass of “curtain walls” into an everyday-experience. In contemporary architecture the use of glass has provoked an interesting discussion of transparency: some claim that transparency is an expression of a democratic society, others claim that transparency goes hand in hand with a society of surveillance – and others again claim that we are witnessing a total restructuring of our understanding and our experience of the relationship between public and private life. The study of transparency may be specified into the study of transparency in for instance: town hall architecture, schools or residential architecture.