governance

Reviews

(Re)Constructing Inequality: Community Development in Public and Private

Claire Dunning - 14 December 2021
Claire Dunning reviews Jeremy R. Levine’s new book, Constructing Community, an ethnographic study of community...
Interviews

In Search of Grand Paris: Pierre Mansat on the Eve of the June 2020 Municipal Elections

Magda Maaoui & Pierre Mansat - 26 June 2020
Magda Maaoui interviews Pierre Mansat, former deputy mayor of Paris and a founding father of “le Grand Paris” (the...
From the Field

Inclusive Place-Based Leadership: Lesson-Drawing from Urban Governance Innovations in Bristol, UK

Robin Hambleton - 9 October 2018
Across the world, progressive city leaders are working to limit the damaging impact of decisions made by “placeless”...
Debates

Streetcars Named Desire

Luc Gwiazdzinski & translated by Oliver Waine - 15 March 2016
Luc Gwiazdzinski provides an original and critical analysis of the changes affecting today’s cities and contemporary...
Reviews

Megacities and how to govern them: rethinking urban development in terms of infrastructure networks

Éric Verdeil & translated by Oliver Waine - 25 September 2015
Are colossal megalopolises like Shanghai or Mumbai uncontrollable? This collective work shows that nothing could be...
Essays

Transport as both a function and a facilitator of metropolitan development?

Aurélien Delpirou & translated by Oliver Waine - 12 February 2015
In Paris, Lyon and Marseille, the development of public transport is a central element of the metropolitan projects...
Debates

Is rurality a thing of the past?

Philippe Dubourg & translated by Oliver Waine - 8 January 2015
In the era of globalisation and metropolisation, is rurality an old-fashioned concept, a thing of the past? The...
Reviews

The misunderstandings of European democracy

Philippe Aldrin & translated by Oliver Waine - 28 May 2014
Though an economic giant, the European Union still appears to be something of a political dwarf. Yet a political...
Debates

The Localism Act in London: institutionalising urban divisions

Justinien Tribillon - 16 April 2014
By decentralising planning powers to local communities, the British Conservative government claims that they are...
From the Field

The mixed success of Toronto’s metropolitan merger

Guillaume Poiret & translated by Oliver Waine - 20 November 2013
While the debate on local-government reform rages on in France, Guillaume Poiret looks back at the municipal mergers...
From the Field

Post-industrial cities: towards a new approach

Max Rousseau & translated by Oliver Waine - 25 September 2013
While anglophone urban studies have sought to critique the way capitalism has developed, the French social sciences...
Debates

Will local-government reform in London involve or abandon its citizens?

Martine Drozdz & translated by Oliver Waine - 3 July 2013
While the current financial crisis has compromised local authorities’ ability to deliver municipal services, the...
Reviews

La Défense: the Planning and Politics of a Global Business District

Matthew Wendeln - 26 June 2013
La Défense, Europe’s largest business district, is the outcome of a singular mix of state planning, architectural...
Debates

The Negotiated Urbanism of Grand Paris Express

Lara Belkind - 12 June 2013
In the fragmented context of Paris’s metropolitan and regional politics, the Grand Pari(s) design consultation and...
Reviews

The politics of municipal mergers (and demergers) in Montreal

Richard Harris - 6 March 2013
In the late 1990s, the province of Quebec reacted to metropolitan growth in Montreal by merging the city with 27 of...
Reviews

Intercommunality, or the broken promises of local democracy

Stéphane Cadiou & translated by Oliver Waine - 16 January 2013
As a new territorial reform is set to be enacted in France, what lessons can be learned from past reforms? In La...
From the Field

The reconstruction of Beirut: sowing the seeds for future conflicts?

Bruno Marot & Serge Yazigi & translated by Oliver Waine - 14 November 2012
Periods of post-war reconstruction are often the backdrop for new socio-economic and political dynamics. In Beirut,...
From the Field

Transport and urban planning in Rome: an unholy marriage?

Aurélien Delpirou & translated by Oliver Waine - 4 January 2012
Aurélien Delpirou brings a new perspective to the debate initiated by Luis Santos y Ganges. He highlights the fact...
Debates

Skyline policy: the Shard and London’s high-rise debate

Manuel Appert & translated by Oliver Waine - 14 December 2011
At a time when major cities are racing to build higher than ever, and when the construction of skyscrapers in France...
Reviews

What future for periurban communities: clubbisation or differentiated social dynamics?

Violaine Girard & translated by Oliver Waine - 16 November 2011
In La ville émiettée, Éric Charmes describes the phenomenon of “clubbisation” in towns and villages in the outer...
Debates

For a Critique of the Liberal Foundations of American Cities

David Imbroscio - 29 June 2011
Profoundly touched by the consequences of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, David Imbroscio seeks concrete political...
Interviews

Towards a regional democracy?

Frédéric Dufaux & Edward W. Soja - 9 March 2011
To achieve a better democracy, Edward Soja defends the idea that we need to change the way we think about the social...

Series

Horizons in the Housing Struggle
Black Power and Black Self-Determination in a New Time and New Spaces
Urban Wastes, Present and Future
New York Dossier: The Food Industry Faces the Covid‑19 Pandemic
Cities in the Age of Financialization
Contemporary Housing Struggles: Crises, Activism, and Critical Research
New York Tech Dossier: The Dark Side of New York’s Tech Economy
Progressive Mayors and Urban Social Movements
Land Rights in the Urban Global South

Featured

From the Field

Covid-19 Transformed New York’s Destination Food Markets

Ivana Mellers - 5 October 2021
Ivana Mellers analyzes how New York’s destination markets—key spaces of economic and social interactions—coped during...
From the Field

Moving Inside City Limits: The Urban Mobility of Undocumented Youth

Stephen P. Ruszczyk - 4 June 2019
The urban context and public transportation shape how undocumented youths move within cities. In a comparison of New...
Reviews

Filming Ethnic Diversity in New York

Stéphane Tonnelat & translated by Christina Mitrakos - 21 October 2016
Frederick Wiseman’s fortieth documentary film, In Jackson Heights (2015), returns to an urban theme explored in...
From the Field

Looking Inward, Across the Border

Harel Shapira - 19 April 2016
In the constellation of anti-immigrant politics in the United States, groups like the Minutemen, civilians who patrol...
Essays

The Political Aesthetics of Drag

Shaka McGlotten - 13 October 2015
Drag, or the diverse art form and culture of performance that typically plays with gender and sex, is an integral...
Debates

Disarm the Police

Gregory Smithsimon - 29 September 2015
In the current political debates about discriminatory policing, there has been a lack of serious discussion of...

Other resources online

“Our hallway’s big enough to play football in!” The council housing...

The Guardian
Boasting two-sink kitchens, Tower Court in north London is tailored for the Haredi Jewish community – but its...

Saudi Arabia: How is Mobility Being Transformed in the Oil Kingdom?

Mobile Lives Forum
04 April 2025, by Aniss Mouad Mezoued The launch of the Riyadh metro in late November 2024 once again highlighted...

Transport for Suburbia: Beyond the Automobile Age (Paul Mees)

Mobile Lives Forum
27 March 2025, by Javier Caletrío Can suburbia avoid car dependence? Can low-density areas enjoy first-rate public...

Geopolitics and Electric Vehicles: The Rise of Climate Protectionism

Mobile Lives Forum
17 February 2025, by Xabier Gangoiti and Graham Parkhurst The electric vehicle (EV) revolution is not just a...

One Way to Fight Rising Food Prices: Public Grocery Stores

The New Republic
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has proposed opening government-owned grocery stores as a solution to...

The Quiet Power of Car-Free Neighborhoods

CityLab
Restricting or banning vehicles in congested city centers pays off with cleaner air and safer streets. We need to...
Centre national de recherche scientifique (CNRS)
Journal supported by the Institut des Sciences Humaines et Sociales (Institute of Human and Social Sciences) of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)

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