Best Urban Studies Podcasts (2024)

1
Benjamin Barson, "Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons" (Wesleyan UP, 2024) 1:07:44

21m ago1:07:44

1:07:44

Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons (Wesleyan UP, 2024) recasts the birth of jazz, unearthing vibrant narratives of New Orleans musicians to reveal how early jazz was inextricably tied to the mass mobilization of freedpeople during Reconstruction and the decades that followed. Benjamin Barson presents a "music history from b…

1
Vishaan Chakrabarti, "The Architecture of Urbanity: Designing for Nature, Culture, and Joy" (Princeton UP, 2024) 1:16:40

26m ago1:16:40

1:16:40

From one of today's most inspired architects and urban advocates, a manifesto for architecture as a force for addressing our biggest social challenges. The world is facing unprecedented challenges, from climate change and population growth, to political division and technological dislocation, to declining mental health and fraying cultural fabric. …

1
Manan Ahmed Asif, "Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore" (New Press, 2024) 1:20:19

4d ago1:20:19

1:20:19

The city of Lahore was more than one thousand years old when it went through a violent schism. As the South Asian subcontinent was partitioned in 1947 to gain freedom from Britain's colonial hold, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was formed, the city's large Hindu and Sikh populations were pushed toward India, and an even larger Muslim refugee …

1
Sanaullah Khan, "Carceral Recovery: Prisons, Drug Markets, and the New Pharmaceutical Self" (Lexington Books, 2023) 54:26

11d ago54:26

54:26

Carceral Recovery: Prisons, Drug Markets, and the New Pharmaceutical Self (Lexington Books, 2023) explores the interrelation between carceral conditions and substance use by considering the intersections between drug markets, sidewalks, households, and prisons in Baltimore. Sanaullah Khan argues that while housing, medicalization, and incarceration…

1
Brian Groom, "Made in Manchester: A People's History of the City That Shaped the Modern World" (Harpernorth, 2024) 27:40

12d ago27:40

27:40

Long before Manchester gave the world titans of industry, comedy, music and sport, it was the cosmopolitan Roman fort of Mamucium. But it was as the ‘shock city’ of the Industrial Revolution that Manchester really made its mark on the world stage. A place built on hard work and innovation, it is no coincidence that the digital age began here too, w…

1
Sabina Faiz Rashid, "Poverty, Gender and Health in the Slums of Bangladesh: Children of Crows" (Routledge, 2024) 55:18

16d ago55:18

55:18

Poverty, Gender and Health in the Slums of Bangladesh: Children of Crows (Routledge, 2024) provides comprehensive ethnographic accounts that depict the daily life experiences and health hardships encountered by young women and their families living in the slums of Dhaka city and the injustices they face. The analysis focuses on two specific histori…

1
Megan Steigerwald Ille, "Opera for Everyone: The Industry's Experiments with American Opera in the Digital Age" (U Michigan Press, 2024) 51:03

20d ago51:03

51:03

Every year a relatively small number of canonic operas are produced around the world. Many companies shy away from new works, afraid of alienating a predominantly white, older, wealthy audience who are comfortable with operatic traditions. But opera can also be a site of incredible innovation. Opera for Everyone: The Industry’s Experiments with Ame…

1
René Boer, "Smooth City: Against Urban Perfection, Towards Collective Alternatives" (Valiz, 2023) 1:10:12

23d ago1:10:12

1:10:12

In cities across the world, a new urban condition is spreading rapidly: an ever-increasing push toward efficiency, sanitization, surveillance and the active eradication of any aberration, friction or alternative. From Dubai, Hong Kong and London to Amsterdam and Cairo, the smooth city, with its gated communities and theme-park zones, insidiously tr…

1
Adam Greenfield, "Lifehouse: Taking Care of Ourselves in a World on Fire" (Verso, 2024) 48:56

23d ago48:56

48:56

In Lifehouse: Taking Care of Ourselves in a World on Fire (Verso, 2024), Adam Greenfield presents a compelling vision for collective resilience in an age of perpetual crisis. As we grapple with what Greenfield terms the "Long Emergency"—an era marked by cascading disasters from pandemics to climate-driven catastrophes—this timely book explores how …

1
Amanda Shoaf Vincent, "Constructing Gardens, Cultivating the City: Paris's New Parks, 1977-1995" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) 1:15:49

27d ago1:15:49

1:15:49

In the space of about two decades, five major parks were proposed, designed, and created in Paris. Some emerged from competitions between professional landscape architects, others were imagined by planners working for the city, all represented a shift in what Amanda Shoaf Vincent calls “post-modern” understandings of the role of parks and garden in…

1
Meghana Joshi, "Children are Everywhere: Conspicuous Reproduction and Childlessness in Reunified Berlin" (Berghahn, 2024) 59:16

1M ago59:16

59:16

Children are Everywhere: Conspicuous Reproduction and Childlessness in Reunified Berlin (Berghahn Books, 2024) by Dr. Meghana Joshi engages with how demographic anxieties and reproductive regimes emerge as forms of social inclusion and exclusion in a low fertility Western European context. This book explores everyday experiences of parenting and ch…

1
Sharad Chari, "Apartheid Remains" (Duke UP, 2024) 1:20:32

1M ago1:20:32

1:20:32

Over the course of the 20th century, the South African state attempted to construct a “White Man’s Country” on the African continent using the biopolitical tools and spatial and economic planning strategies that characterized modern statecraft. My guest today, the geographer Sharad Chari, examines how racialized subaltern populations of Blacks, Ind…

1
Wes Marshall, "Killed by a Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion That Science Underlies Our Transportation System" (Island Press, 2024) 44:16

1M ago44:16

44:16

In the US we are nearing four million road deaths since we began counting them in 1899. The numbers are getting worse in recent years, yet we continue to accept these deaths as part of doing business. There has been no examination of why we engineer roads that are literally killing us. In Killed by a Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion that S…

1
Kanupriya Dhingra, "Old Delhi's Parallel Book Bazaar" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 55:01

1M ago55:01

55:01

Old Delhi's Parallel Book Bazaar (Cambridge UP, 2024) looks at Old Delhi's Daryaganj Sunday Book Market, popularly known as Daryaganj Sunday Patri Kitab Bazaar, as a parallel location for books and a site of resilience and possibilities. The first section studies the bazaar's spatiality - its location, relocation, and spatialization. Three actors p…

1
The Ideology of Democratic Athens 1:16:20

1M ago1:16:20

1:16:20

We are Clavis Aurea: a dynamic team constantly looking for ways to make the academic publishing industry grow and to promote groundbreaking academic publications to scholars, students and enthusiasts globally. Based in the renowned publishing city of Leiden, we eat, sleep and breathe publishing! Matteo Barbato’s The Ideology of Democratic Athens: I…

1
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani, "The Cities We Need: Essential Stories of Everyday Places" (MIT Press, 2024) 42:59

2M ago42:59

42:59

An expressive book of prose and photographs that reveals the powerful ways our everyday places support our shared belonging. Where would you take someone on a guided tour of your neighborhood? In The Cities We Need: Essential Stories of Everyday Places (MIT Press, 2024), photographer and urbanist Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani introduces us to the comple…

1
Lynne B. Sagalyn, "Times Square Remade: The Dynamics of Urban Change" (MIT Press, 2023) 1:01:07

2M ago1:01:07

1:01:07

What is it about Times Square that has inspired such attention for well over a century? And how is it that, despite its many changes of character, the place has maintained a unique hold on our collective imagination? In Times Square Remade: The Dynamics of Urban Change (MIT Press, 2023), which comes twenty years after her widely acclaimed Times Squ…

1
Jonathan Maskit, "Bicycle" (Bloomsbury, 2023) 1:16:54

2M ago1:16:54

1:16:54

These days the bicycle often appears as an interloper in a world constructed for cars. An almost miraculous 19th-century contraption, the bicycle promises to transform our lives and the world we live in, yet its time seems always yet-to-come or long-gone-by. In Bicycle (Bloomsbury, 2024) Dr. Jonathan Maskit takes us on an interdisciplinary ride to …

1
Max Hirsh and Till Mostowlansky, "Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia" (U Hawaii Press, 2022) 1:05:13

2M ago1:05:13

1:05:13

In the twenty-first century, infrastructure has undergone a seismic shift from West to East. Once concentrated in Europe and North America, global infrastructure production today is focused squarely on Asia. Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia (U Hawaii Press, 2022) investigates the deeper implications of that pivot to the East. Written by lead…

1
Amir Alexander, "Liberty's Grid: A Founding Father, a Mathematical Dreamland, and the Shaping of America" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 1:00:11

2M ago1:00:11

1:00:11

Seen from an airplane, much of the United States appears to be a gridded land of startling uniformity. Perpendicular streets and rectangular fields, all precisely measured and perfectly aligned, turn both urban and rural America into a checkerboard landscape that stretches from horizon to horizon. In evidence throughout the country, but especially …

1
Beng Huat Chua, "Public Subsidy, Private Accumulation: The Political Economy of Singapore's Public Housing" (NUS Press, 2024) 1:07:39

2M ago1:07:39

1:07:39

The achievement of Singapore’s national public housing program is impressive by any standard. Within a year of its first election victory in 1959, the People's Action Party began to deliver on its promises in dramatic fashion. By the 1980s, 85 percent of the population had been rehoused in modern flats, and today, decades later, the provision of pu…

1
Azra Hromadžić, "Riverine Citizenship: A Bosnian City in Love with the River" (CEU Press, 2024) 40:35

2M ago40:35

40:35

In this episode of the CEU Press Podcast, host Andrea Talabér sat down with Azra Hromadžić (Syracuse University) to talk about her new book with CEU Press, Riverine Citizenship: A Bosnian City in Love with the River. In the podcast we discussed how in the Bosnian city of Bihać, people’s connection to the river Una has shaped not only the river itse…

1
Raquel Velho on Disability, Infrastructure, and London's Public Transport System 1:28:08

2M ago1:28:08

1:28:08

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Raquel Velho, Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, about her recent book, Hacking the Underground: Disability, Infrastructure, and London's Public Transport System (U Washington Press, 2023). Hacking the Underground provides a fascinating ethnographic …

1
Yiu Fai Chow et al., "It’s My Party: Tat Ming Pair and the Postcolonial Politics of Popular Music in Hong Kong" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) 1:02:05

2M ago1:02:05

1:02:05

It’s My Party: Tat Ming Pair and the Postcolonial Politics of Popular Music in Hong Kong (Palgrave Macmillan 2024) is unique in focusing on just one band from one city – but the story of Tat Ming Pair, in so many ways, is the story of Hong Kong's recent decades, from the Handover to the Umbrella Movement to 2019's standoff. A comprehensive, theoret…

1
Andy Clarno et al., "Imperial Policing: Weaponized Data in Carceral Chicago" (U Minnesota Press, 2024) 1:18:38

3M ago1:18:38

1:18:38

Chicago is a city with extreme concentrations of racialized poverty and inequity, one that relies on an extensive network of repressive agencies to police the poor and suppress struggles for social justice. Imperial Policing: Weaponized Data in Carceral Chicago (University of Minnesota Press, 2024) examines the role of local law enforcement, federa…

1
6. Walking the city with… Sergio Montero and urban solutions 33:09

3M ago33:09

33:09

Solutions, mobility and getting on the road Show notes for Episode 6 are available here. If you liked our walk, you might want to follow up on Sergio’s work in Urban Studies: Montero S and Baiocchi G (2022) A posteriori comparisons, repeated instances and urban policy mobilities: What ‘best practices’ leave behind. Urban Studies 59(8): 1536-1555. M…

1
5. Walking the city with… Zara Shabrina & Mike Batty and urban science 44:22

3M ago44:22

44:22

Platform economy, talking to machines, the misuse of an app, and buffalo wings Show notes for Episode 5 are available here. If you liked our walk, you might want to follow up on Zara and Mike’s work in Urban Studies: Shabrina Z, Arcaute E and Batty M (2022) Airbnb and its potential impact on the London housing market. Urban Studies 59(1): 197-221. …

1
4. Walking the city with… Shenjing He and Chinese urbanism 25:42

3M ago25:42

25:42

The urbanisation of China, and speculative enterprise of city villagers Show notes for Episode 4 are available here. If you liked our walk, you might want to follow up on Shenjing’s work in Urban Studies: He S and Qian J (2017) From an emerging market to a multifaceted urban society: Urban China studies. Urban Studies 54(4): 827-846. He S (2015) Co…

1
3. Walking the city with… Dallas Rogers and spooky urbanism 30:51

3M ago30:51

30:51

Spooky concepts, sounds, global real estate circuits and a quietness with an edge Show notes for Episode 3 are available here. If you liked our walk, you might want to follow up on Dallas’ work in Urban Studies: Gibson C, Legacy C and Rogers D (2023) Deal-making, elite networks and public–private hybridisation: More-than-neoliberal urban governance…

1
2. Walking the city with… Julie Ren and comparisons 26:18

3M ago26:18

26:18

Elsewheres, middles and comparisons Show notes for Episode 2 are available here. If you liked our walk, you might want to follow up on Julie’s work in Urban Studies: Ren J (2022) A more global urban studies, besides empirical variation. Urban Studies 59(8): 1741-1748. Credits Every Beginning Is Hard 1v46 by Setuniman nothing more 1T37 by Setuniman …

1
1. Walking the city with… Colin McFarlane and crowds 34:58

3M ago34:58

34:58

Densities and crowds, fragments, and sanitation Show notes for Episode 1 are available here. If you liked our walk, you might want to follow up on Colin’s work in Urban Studies: McFarlane C (2023) Critical Commentary: Repopulating density: COVID-19 and the politics of urban value. Urban Studies 60(9): 1548-1569. McFarlane C (2012) The entrepreneuri…

1
Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria, "Mumbai on Two Wheels: Cycling, Urban Space, and Sustainable Mobility" (U Washington Press, 2024) 53:29

3M ago53:29

53:29

Mumbai is not commonly seen as a bike-friendly city because of its dense traffic and the absence of bicycle lanes. Yet the city supports rapidly expanding and eclectic bicycle communities. Exploring how people bike and what biking means in the city, Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria challenges assumptions that underlie sustainable transportation planning.Ar…

1
Douglas K. Miller, "Indians on the Move: Native American Mobility and Urbanization in the Twentieth Century" (UNC Press, 2019) 1:43:20

3M ago1:43:20

1:43:20

In 1972, the Bureau of Indian Affairs terminated its twenty-year-old Voluntary Relocation Program, which encouraged the mass migration of roughly 100,000 Native American people from rural to urban areas. At the time the program ended, many groups--from government leaders to Red Power activists--had already classified it as a failure, and scholars h…

1
Joseph Heathcott, "Global Queens: An Urban Mosaic" (Fordham UP, 2023) 41:24

3M ago41:24

41:24

Joseph Heathcott discusses his latest book, Global Queens: An Urban Mosaic (Fordham University Press, 2023), an engaging hybrid of text and visual that features a trove of his personal photography of urban spaces throughout NYC's most diverse borough. Including: airports, overgrown yards, possibly the last living speakers of indigenous languages, t…

1
Stephanie L Canizales, "Sin Padres, Ni Papeles: Unaccompanied Migrant Youth Coming of Age in the United States" (U California Press, 2024) 1:04:50

3M ago1:04:50

1:04:50

Each year, thousands of youth endure harrowing unaccompanied and undocumented migrations across Central America and Mexico to the United States in pursuit of a better future. Drawing on the firsthand narratives of migrant youth in Los Angeles, California to produce Sin Padres, Ni Papeles: Unaccompanied Migrant Youth Coming of Age in the United Stat…

1
Farshid Emami, "Isfahan: Architecture and Urban Experience in Early Modern Iran" (Penn State UP, 2024) 53:12

3M ago53:12

53:12

A vibrant urban settlement from mediaeval times and the royal seat of the Safavid dynasty, the city of Isfahan emerged as a great metropolis during the seventeenth century. Using key sources, Isfahan: Architecture and Urban Experience in Early Modern Iran (Penn State University Press, 2024) reconstructs the spaces and senses of this dynamic city. F…

1
Abbey Stockstill, "Marrakesh and the Mountains: Landscape, Urban Planning, and Identity in the Medieval Maghrib" (Penn State UP, 2024) 57:58

3M ago57:58

57:58

Over the course of the Almoravid (1040–1147) and Almohad (1121–1269) dynasties, mediaeval Marrakesh evolved from an informal military encampment into a thriving metropolis that attempted to translate a local and distinctly rural past into a broad, imperial architectural vernacular. In Marrakesh and the Mountains: Landscape, Urban Planning, and Iden…

1
Miguel Montalva Barba, "White Supremacy and Racism in Progressive America: Race, Place, and Space" (Policy Press, 2024) 53:27

3M ago53:27

53:27

White Supremacy and Racism in Progressive America: Race, Place, and Space (Policy Press, 2024) examines the connections between race, place, and space, and sheds light on how they contribute and maintain racial hierarchies. Dr. Miguel Montalva Barba focuses on the White residents of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, which, according to the Cooks Politi…

1
Arif Hasan, "The Search for Shelter: Writings on Land and Housing" (Oxford UP, 2022) 52:33

3M ago52:33

52:33

The Search for Shelter: Writings on Land and Housing (Oxford UP, 2022) sheds light on the global population living in slums, which has increased from 1 billion in 2014 to 1.6 billion in 2018. The book also looks at the impact of neoliberalism on urban planning, the manner of organization and the struggles of the communities affected by these proces…

1
George Musgrave, "The England No One Cares About: Lyrics from Suburbia" (Goldsmiths Press, 2023) 1:30:12

3M ago1:30:12

1:30:12

An exploration of the much-derided English suburbs through rap music. There are many different Englands. From the much-romanticized rolling countryside, to the cosmopolitanism of the inner cities (embraced by some as progressive, multicultural enlightenment and derided by others as the playground of a self-righteous metropolitan elite), or the disp…

1
Laura Zurowski et al., "City Steps of Pittsburgh: A History & Guide" (History Press, 2024) 41:27

3M ago41:27

41:27

In Pittsburgh, the elevation varies wildly, fluctuating 660 feet from highest to lowest points throughout the area and making it one of the hilliest cities in the United States. Throughout this unruly and physically challenging landscape, the city's first mass transportation system was built - a steadily expanding network of public stairways, local…

1
Anne Gray Fischer, "The Streets Belong to Us: Sex, Race, and Police Power from Segregation to Gentrification" (UNC Press, 2022) 1:14:04

4M ago1:14:04

1:14:04

Anne Gray Fischer speaks about her path to and through research, including how sex workers informed her analysis of policing and state violence, the role of law enforcement in struggles over economic development, and the intellectual and practical factors of research design. Men, especially Black men, often stand in as the ultimate symbol of the ma…

1
Yoram Meital, "Sacred Places Tell Tales: Jewish Life and Heritage in Modern Cairo" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024) 1:03:50

4M ago1:03:50

1:03:50

Cairo's synagogues shed new light on the transformation Egyptian society and its Jewish community underwent from 1875 to the present. Sacred Places Tell Tales: Jewish Life and Heritage in Modern Cairo (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024) is the previously untold history of Egyptian Jewry and the ways in which Cairo's synagogues historically functioned as a…

1
Everyday Architecture in Context: Public Markets in Hong Kong (1842-1981) (Chinese U of Hong Kong Press, 2023) 52:50

4M ago52:50

52:50

How do public markets, as ordinary as they seem, carry the weight of a city’s history? How do such everyday buildings reflect a city’s changing political, social, and economic needs, through their yearslong transformations in forms, functions, and management? Today’s book is: Everyday Architecture in Context: Public Markets in Hong Kong, 1842-1981 …

1
Will Urban Youth Fundamentally Change African Politics? 39:29

4M ago39:29

39:29

Will Africa’s increasingly youthful population lead to new democratic and development breakthroughs? Or will it generate fresh instability as frustrated young people demand economic opportunities their governments cannot provide? In this episode, Nic Cheeseman talks to Professors Amy Patterson and Megan Hershey about their recent book Africa’s Urba…

1
Prithi Kanakamedala, "Brooklynites: The Remarkable Story of the Free Black Communities that Shaped a Borough" (NYU Press, 2024) 54:53

4M ago54:53

54:53

Meet the Black Brooklynites who defined New York City's most populous borough through their search for social justice. Before it was a borough, Brooklyn was our nation's third largest city. Its free Black community attracted people from all walks of life--businesswomen, church leaders, laborers, and writers--who sought to grow their city in a radic…

1
Mark Baker, "Pivot of China: Spatial Politics and Inequality in Modern Zhengzhou" (Harvard UP, 2024) 52:18

4M ago52:18

52:18

China’s modern history has been marked by deep spatial inequalities between regions, between cities, and between rural and urban areas. Contemporary observers and historians alike have attributed these inequalities to distinct stages of China's political economy: the dualistic economy of semicolonialism, rural-urban divisions in the socialist perio…

1
Lisandro Perez, “Sugar, Cigars and Revolution: The Making of Cuban New York” (NYU Press, 2018) 38:34

4M ago38:34

38:34

A new book reveals an incredible slice of Cuban-American history that’s been all but forgotten until now. Lisandro Perez‘s Sugar, Cigars and Revolution: The Making of Cuban New York (NYU Press, 2018) tells the story of a vibrant Cuban émigré community in 19th-century New York that ranged from wealthy sugar plantation owners investing their fortunes…

1
Frances Tanzer, "Vanishing Vienna: Modernism, Philosemitism, and Jews in a Postwar City" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024) 1:07:58

4M ago1:07:58

1:07:58

In Vanishing Vienna: Modernism, Philosemitism, and Jews in a Postwar City (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024) historian Frances Tanzer traces the reconstruction of Viennese culture from the 1938 German annexation through the early 1960s. The book reveals continuity in Vienna's cultural history across this period and a framework for interpreting Viennese c…

1
Kevin Loughran, "Parks for Profit: Selling Nature in the City" (Columbia UP, 2022) 1:03:56

4M ago1:03:56

1:03:56

A new kind of city park has emerged in the early twenty-first century. Postindustrial parks transform the derelict remnants of an urban past into distinctive public spaces that meld repurposed infrastructure, wild-looking green space, and landscape architecture. For their proponents, they present an opportunity to turn disused areas into neighborho…

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