Latest Urban Studies news 2/5/23

Urban Studies Best Article 2022

The Urban Studies Best Article is awarded by the editors to the author(s) of what they consider to be the most innovative and agenda-setting article published in a given year. Eight articles were shortlisted by the editors from those published in print copy in 2022. The editors are pleased to announce that Dr Stephanie Wakefield, Life University, is the winner of the Urban Studies Best Article 2022 for her article, Critical urban theory in the Anthropocene. 

This article along with the other shortlisted papers are free to view on the Journal’s website.

Critical urban theory in the Anthropocene by Stephanie Wakefield
Urban Studies 59(5): 917–936.

Shortlisted articles:

The impact of immediate urban environments on people’s momentary happiness by Lingling Su, Suhong Zhou, Mei-Po Kwan, Yanwei Chai, and Xue Zhang
Urban Studies 59(1): 140–160.

On the long-run solution to aggregate housing systems by Geoffrey Meen, Alexander Mihailov, and Yehui Wang
Urban Studies 59(1): 178–196.

The (de)territorialised appeal of international schools in China: Forging brands, boundaries and inter-belonging in segregated urban space by Lily Kong, Orlando Woods, and Hong Zhu
Urban Studies 59(1): 242–258.

Of political entrepreneurs: Assembling community and social capital in Hyderabad’s informal settlements by Indivar Jonnalagadda
Urban Studies 59(4): 717–733.

Mapping and making gangland: A legacy of redlining and enjoining gang neighbourhoods in Los Angeles by Stefano Bloch and Susan A. Phillips
Urban Studies 59(4): 750–770.

The contingency of neighbourhood diversity: Variation of social context using mobile phone application data by Wenfei Xu
Urban Studies 59(4): 851–869.

Governing investors and developers: Analysing the role of risk allocation in urban development by Frances Brill
Urban Studies 59(7): 1499–1517.

Latest articles on OnlineFirst

Bottom-up cluster branding through boundary spanners: The case of the Jingdezhen ceramics cluster in China by Di Wu and Neil M. Coe

Di Wu and Neil Coe show that place branding can involve bottom-up processes driven by the agency of diverse individual actors, working in tandem with governmental actors.

Gentrifying with family wealth: Parental gifts and neighbourhood sorting among young adult owner-occupants by Wouter van Gent, Rik Damhuis and Sako Musterd

New Open Access study from Wouter van Gent et al finds that parental gifts flow into the housing market in a spatially-uneven way. 

Read the accompanying blog post here.

Delivering common property in Chinese contractual communities: Law, power and practice by Yiru Jia, Nicky Morrison and Franziska Sielker

Yiru Jia et al. analyse the power relations between land, construction, and housing departments within Shanghai district governments and with developers in this Open Access article.

Commodifying Havana? Private accumulation, assetisation and marketisation in the Cuban metropolis by Gertjan Wijburg

Latest research from Gertjan Wijburg contributes to ongoing debates on the incomplete and contested nature of urban commodification in the Global North and Global South.

What if autonomous vehicles had been introduced into cities? A counterfactual analysis by Haotian Zhong and Wei Li

In their latest study, Haotian Zhong and Wei Li argue that distance cost and congestion cost should be addressed inautonomous vehicle research. 

The relevance of job accessibility to labour market outcomes: Evidence for the São Paulo metropolitan region by Leandro Batista Duarte, Raul da Mota Silveira Neto and Diego Firmino Costa da Silva

New research by Batista Duarte et al. indicates that job accessibility conditions are important for both men and women in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo. However, such relevance is considerably greater for the latter.

New book reviews on Urban Blog

Book review: Caring for Place: Community Development in Rural England reviewed by Frank Moulaert "While many stay away from the dirty work of ‘practice’– unless it significantly adds to the university or to personal resources – Healey does the opposite. As a geographer, planner and a polyvalent citizen, she has made valuable use of her many skills in spatial research and down-to-earth, place-community involving planning practice."

Book review: Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City reviewed by Benjamin Bansal "Is it possible to design a city that possesses Tokyo’s best qualities? Yes, say Tokyo-based urbanist Jorge Almazán and his lab in this book. They illustrate the Japanese capital’s success in becoming one of the most vibrant and liveable cities on the planet by presenting five urban phenomena which came about in their present form primarily during the post-war period."

Read more book reviews on the Urban Studies blog.