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In this essay, I undertake a critical analysis of the UN‐Habitat publication, The Quito Papers. I begin by unpacking the representation within The Quito Papers of the Charter of Athens of 1941 as an outcome of CIAM IV in 1933. Here, the ways in which the authors centralize the Charter of Athens within their critique of contemporary urbanization is critically analysed. Ultimately, I argue that what emerges is a simplification of the complex intertwining of urbanization and urbanist ideals. Based on this, I situate what is presented in The Quito Papers as alternative imaginaries—centred largely on European ideals of urbanism—within the context of urban change since the 1970s. This includes a discussion of the manner in which these ideals are promoted within urbanist discourse, including the role of the authors themselves in their engagement with UN‐Habitat. Finally, I situate some of the arguments contained in The Quito Papers within current debates in urban theory. I contend that the relationship between processes of urbanization and the ideals of modernist urbanism are more genealogical than direct. Furthermore, I argue that it is through this relationship that broader power dynamics and their resultant inequalities can be further examined and challenged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a case for viewing vacancy as "precarious property" (Blomley 2020; Antipode 52[1]:36–57), i.e. less a material object defined by absence of use than the property relation (understood as a bundle of social, economic, legal, and political relationships) put under strain by the visibility of non‐use. Focusing on Dublin's temporary urbanism moment (2008–2017), the paper has two aims. Firstly, it gives a critical account of this recent urban history of experimentation, documenting how the possibilities of the period following the crash were (fore)closed through governmental interventions. Secondly, the empirical case is used to make a wider conceptual argument about the conjunctural role that vacancy plays in urbanisation and urban politics, developing three main arguments: that vacancy is a vulnerable axis within the ownership model of property; that claims to vacancy are articulated in conjunctural and contextual ways; and that vacancy epitomises the dual nature of precarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how Chinese transnational investments, as (re)framed in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), contribute to changes in urbanisation processes in Southeast Asia. On the ground, the BRI becomes contextualised and intersects with local and national development trajectories. The growing presence of Chinese actors in the region intensifies urban dynamics, especially in secondary cities and emerging urban sites, where the BRI is used as a lever for local internationalisation strategies. The heterogeneous nature of the links between the BRI and various large urban projects is demonstrated on the basis of case studies involving changing consortia of private and public Chinese and Southeast Asian actors. A regional approach allows us to identify connections and shared processes across Southeast Asian countries. It provides a historically grounded understanding of how the BRI incorporates long‐term interactions with China and more recent partnerships in Southeast Asian countries. The paper paves the way for a research agenda that contests the image of China as a monolithic actor implementing the BRI uniformly and consistently. Further analyses are needed to examine systems and networks of actors as well as the local urban politics that affect the BRI on the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to offer a nuanced understanding of how the rural responds to and speaks back to the urban in the context of increasingly blurred rural‐urban landscapes. The prevailing theorizations remain entrenched in an intellectual impasse that still treats the rural as a residual space or a reactive actor besieged by external urban forces. Using lineage spaces as an empirical lens, this paper delves into rural geographies of lineage landscapes in post‐reform China by articulating rural agencies in more active, non‐lineal ways. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in rural Wenzhou, southeast China, this paper argues that the articulation of rural voices amidst China's urban modernity unveils a spatial paradox of landscape de/reterritorialization at the dimensions of discourse, practice and (trans)locality. We first reveal how official rural discourses de‐territorialize and lessen lineage groups' control over their symbolic buildings while simultaneously opening up opportunities for them to mobilize officially‐sanctioned discourses to expand lineage spaces and reterritorialize their power. Second, we show how villagers embrace the de‐territorializing practice of landscape commodification, which becomes a crucial source of finance for them to perform ritual activities at specific festivals, thereby re‐asserting rural collectivism, sociality and sacredness. Third, we unpack the trans‐local dimension of rural de/reterritorialization by exploring how villagers forge lineage‐based rural networking that transcends space‐time, which paradoxically reinforces the spatial claim for territorializing rural power that is demarcated from urban/modern orientations. We further argue that these multiple spatial processes of rural de/reterritorialization challenge a reactive or neatly‐divided account of rural agency during its engagement with urbanizing relations and processes. In all, this paper offers a more complex, paradoxical account of relational rurality in a rapidly urbanizing China, and foregrounds an agenda towards more 'inclusive' rural studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovation (GI) can enable win‒win style economic and ecological benefits. Using China's pilot scheme for the construction of the intellectual property protection (IPP) system as an example, this paper empirically tests the impact of IPP system reform on the GI level and its spatial spillover effect. The results show that IPP system reform has significantly promoted urban GI, indicating that a progressive reform model characterized by experimentalist governance is applicable to innovation policy practices in developing countries. The dynamic effect analysis shows that IPP system reform can be applied to continuously promote urban GI. The mechanism analysis shows that such use of IPP system reform can improve the level of urban GI by promoting investment and talent agglomeration, confirming the viewpoint of the institutionalist school. The heterogeneity analysis shows that IPP system reform plays a stronger role in promoting GI in peripheral cities than in central cities, in cities with lower rather than higher scientific and educational levels and in cities with weaker rather than stronger GI capacity. Consistent with the theory of institutional diffusion, IPP system reform has a significant spatial spillover effect, promoting GI activities in surrounding cities while working to improve the local GI level. This paper affirms the effectiveness of the pilot regional innovation policy with Chinese characteristics, with important theoretical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban gardens have emerged at the cracks and edges of the densely built environment of Metro Manila, taking on a variety of forms that cultivate a sense of habitability amid harsh urban conditions. The empirical diversity in the spaces, practices and trajectories of urban gardens in the city, however, often exceeds their usual framings either as state‐sponsored projects from above that seek to transform individual dispositions, or as grassroots initiatives from below that result from conscious collective resistance or encroachment. Framing gardens as a locus to understand city‐making amid massive urbanisation, this paper aims to provide a different account of urban gardens by focusing on how they emerge from a certain edginess, characterised by a coming together of various actions, aspirations and relations, and by a mode of practice marked by a distinctive temporality and peripheral logic. Using particular accounts of gardening from across Metro Manila, the paper demonstrates the edginess of urban gardens in terms of four articulations: as interstitial, provisional, transversal and experimental. Making a garden work and maintaining its place in the city entail consolidating relationships between various urban elements that carve spaces of manoeuvre, produce diverse eventualities, and map onto the indeterminate politics of the maybe. Framing gardens as a locus to understand city‐making amid massive urbanization, this paper aims to provide a different account of urban gardens by focusing on how they emerge from a certain edginess, characterized by a coming together of various actions, aspirations and relations, and by a mode of practice marked by a distinctive temporality and peripheral logic. Using particular accounts of gardening from across Metro Manila, the paper demonstrates the edginess of urban gardens in terms of four articulations: as interstitial, provisional, transversal and experimental. Making a garden work and maintaining its place in the city entail consolidating relationships between various urban elements that carve spaces of maneuver, produce diverse eventualities, and map onto the indeterminate politics of the maybe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how uncertainty has become a central constitutive feature under the ongoing attempts at rapid extension of highway corridors across India. Contrary to the terra nullius assumption that India's highway programmes operate under, the pathways to accumulation they seek to open present a palimpsest of pre‐existing claims, occupancies and forms of dwelling that come into conflict with the attempts to extend urban space. The paper specifically follows the prolonged uncertainty surrounding a regional highway corridor between the cities of Delhi and Gurgaon, the Dwarka Expressway, which underwent multiple legal contestations over evictions and land disputes. In doing so, it analyses how managing uncertainty in the production of highway corridors becomes profitable for the state, powerful corporate actors and middle‐class homebuyer‐investors, presenting a form of value that can be commodified and exchanged. However, on the other hand, owing to its double‐edged nature, uncertainty also becomes productive for the urban majority in laying claims to urban space. As rapid extended urbanisation increasingly disrupts the lifeworlds of marginal communities, this paper calls for embracing the politics and practices of uncertainty in the continued efforts to push ex‐centric urban analysis beyond the narrow focus on state processes and commodification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jakarta is widely lauded by global consultancies, technology giants and critical scholars as an increasingly important 'smart' city. One of the reasons for this is the attempted use by state, corporate and individual actors of smart technologies, discourses and practices to solve the urban challenges of flooding, traffic and waste management in the context of climate change and urbanisation. In this paper, we examine the efforts of the Jakarta Smart City programme and office to govern these challenges. Where smart cities are often described as offering speed and real‐time efficiency, we instead find that the technologies and practices mobilised by the Jakarta Smart City programme govern by projecting, delaying and hypothesising into the future. We describe these governance strategies and outline three of their key forms: keeping track of objects and people, calculating and projecting state savings, and mundane watching but not acting. Rather than facilitating exacting and real‐time policy responses to address these urban problems, these practices instead produce temporal relations of delay that push action further into the future. Building on existing research about futuring and anticipation, and the tempos and rhythms of smart cities, our contribution is to highlight slowness and delay as a key mode of governing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban development is a key driver of global biodiversity loss. "Green" infrastructure is integrated to offset some impacts of development on ecosystem quality by supporting urban biodiversity, a prominent example being green roofs. The effects of green infrastructures on urban biodiversity are not well understood and poorly included in life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. Here, we present a novel methodology that quantifies the local impact of green infrastructures on terrestrial biodiversity—demonstrated here for sedum roofs in London, UK—and integrates within LCA. It relates energy provision by plants to the metabolic requirements of animals to determine what species richness (number of species) and species abundance (number of individuals) are supported. We demonstrate this methodology using a case study, comparing the life cycle impact of developing 18 buildings, with either asphalt concrete or sedum roofs, on ecosystem quality. We found the sedum roofs (0.018 km2) support 53 species (673 individuals), equivalent to 1.3% of the development's life cycle impacts on ecosystem quality. Complete offsetting requires considerable reduction in transport use throughout the development's lifetime, and lower environmental impact material selection during construction (contributing 98% and 2%, respectively). The results indicate sedum roofs offer minor impact mitigation capacities in the context of urban development, and this capacity is limited for all green infrastructures by species richness in local species pools. This paper demonstrates the potential and limitations of quantifying terrestrial biodiversity offsets offered by green infrastructures alongside urbanization, and the need for realistic expectations of what role it might play in sustainable urban design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many cities, the entry of financial actors into housing opens new geopolitical relations with overseas entities, including state-backed investors such as sovereign wealth funds. These transformations raise the question of the extent to which real estate enables the urbanisation of state capitalism, understood as the expansion of the state's role as promoter, supervisor, and owner of capital. Our paper answers this question through an analysis of Manchester Life, a residential real estate joint venture between Manchester City Council and the Abu Dhabi United Group, an investment firm linked to the Abu Dhabi royal family. In doing so it explores state capitalism as a form of extended urbanisation, with oil revenues from the Persian Gulf used to extract urban land rents in the Global North. It further highlights urban geopolitical implications, theorising Manchester Life as an organisational fix that reworks the geographies of value extraction while eroding democratic accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the relative sensitivities of seven commonly used indices of stream benthic community composition and three multivariate indices to effects associated with mines, pulp and paper mills, and urbanization. The indices included total abundance, number of taxa, diversity (H9), evenness, Hilsenhoff's biotic index (HBI), the BioMAP water quality index (WQI), the percent model affinity (PMA), and the first three ordination axes from a correspondence analysis. The second objective of the study was to determine the degree of redundancy among these indices. Six data sets (two from each of the three types of development) were used to address the objectives. In each data set, replicate benthic samples were collected from reference areas as well as one or more downstream areas exposed to a point-source or non-point-source discharge. The PMA approach and the ordination axes indicated significant differences between the reference and downstream communities for all six data sets (p < 0.05). With the exception of H', each of the other metrics revealed significant effects associated with one or two, but not all three, types of development. For example, the HBI and WQI indicated significant effects associated with pulp and paper mills and urbanization, but not mining. In all studies, effect sizes (i.e., the standardized difference between means for the reference and exposed areas expressed in units of standard deviations [SDs]) exceeded 2 SDs. However, effect sizes for the PMA and the first or second ordination axis scores were generally larger than effect sizes for the other metrics, indicating that these indices were often the most sensitive indicators of development. In addition, a high degree of redundancy was found among the various metrics, perhaps because the effects were large (i.e., >2 SDs). The greater sensitivity of the ordination axes and the PMA approach emphasizes their value as indices of benthic community composition. As a result, we... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The goal of the paper is to discover the dynamic features of rural men's age at first marriage, and to explore impacts of marriage expenses on men's age at first marriage in rural China amid a rapid urbanization and sociodemographic transition. Background: Given the rapid urbanization and sociodemographic transition, changes in rural men's marriage timing and its influencing mechanism in China are emerging but remain under examined. Method: The data were collected by the New Urbanization and Sustainable Development research group from Xi'an Jiaotong University in 2018 (n = 1,391). Regression models were used to explore the influence of men's marriage expenses and regional economic factors on their age at first marriage. Results: The relationship between squared total marriage expenses of rural migrant men and their age at first marriage shows as a U‐shaped curve. Conjugal matching, family, premarital migration, and regional economy play important roles for rural men entering their first marriages. Conclusion: Compared with the age‐appropriate married men, the early and late married men tend to have higher marriage expenses. Men with more economic resources are capable of seizing high‐qualified women at a younger age, whereas men with less economic resources need to pay more for their first marriage at an older age. Fathers' lower social class and regional economy significantly delay men's age at first marriage. Implications: This study reveals marriage expense is another important factor influencing men's first marriage entry in rural China and provides a clue to solve difficulties of rural men getting married, especially in societies with ongoing rapid urbanization and sociodemographic transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As climate migration has garnered the interest of research and policy communities over the last two decades, the focus has been on whether, how and where climate stresses might precipitate out‐migration, and how to assist and protect those affected. Less attention has gone to the places that receive climate migrants, and how their arrival might affect adaptation at destination. Against the backdrop of increasingly severe climate disruptions, this paper examines the likelihood of climate‐related movements going into urban areas, and the challenges that this may entail for those who move and for urban governance. With much of climate migration projected to feed into existing urbanization trends, we see the need for data and research to help bolster the agency of communities and cities to plan and act locally, and across geographies, for inclusion and resilience, and to advocate collectively for enabling policy frameworks and increased national and international support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the intermediate space or interface where rural and urban boundaries become blurred has been gaining momentum within geography and other intersecting fields. In contrast to the dominant focus on the growth of urbanism at the rural‐urban interface, a growing number of studies have emerged to intervene the debate from the rural side. This paper contributes to this burgeoning scholarship by reviewing recent work on geographical articulations of rurality in the face of urbanizing forces and processes operating in intermediate spaces. I firstly explore how extant representations of rurality at the rural‐urban interface are inherent with an "idyllic" vision, a "modernist" one or a combination of both, and how the interactions among multiple rural visions produce tensions and conflicts at the interface. Then, I outline the recent conceptualizations of rurality under the relational and materialist turns, which move beyond the discursive construction of the countryside and offer new theoretical insights and analytical concepts for appreciating multiple, heterogeneous, open and inclusive articulations of rural voices at the interface. Finally, I map out directions for future research to attend to the insufficiently‐addressed temporal dimensions of the rural‐urban interface, thereby moving current discussions of relational rurality forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plastic is a persistent problem in westernised cities. Yet it is also a key mediator, affording and assisting the everyday. In small apartments, it supports daily life by assisting with waste management, storage, and provisioning of affordable ornaments and furniture. Plastic, in this context, is a mundane and utilitarian substrate to apartment life, as well as being a problematic potential pollutant. Recognising the diverse contributions to research on high‐density living, this paper draws on vertical urbanism and relational ideas of home. It explores the socio‐material entanglements of plastic in apartments through household interviews across Melbourne, London, Barcelona, and Perth. The research reveals ways in which plastic mediates the material inequalities of high‐rise living, typified by entanglements of space constraint, transience, and waste management. The contribution is twofold. Theoretically, our work suggests a direction for socio‐materialities research in reframing ideas of home as a static, physical site, to one that is more contingent materially and spatially. As various households adapt and make do, their refuges in the sky are being reconfigured physically and symbolically by and through plastic. Relational approaches can help to reveal the mundane but critical entanglements of plastic and everyday life in apartments. Second, empirically, we show that mundane infrastructures matter; they shape the spaces and places of plastic and apartment inequalities. Thus, policy interventions that target household behaviours can only have a marginal impact on plastic consumption where uneven infrastructures remain. Moreover, they may direct attention away from where change might be more promising, such as wider social rules and meanings around plastic, and the materialities of building design/management for waste infrastructures both inside and outside the apartment. As a problem material, the elimination of plastic waste globally presents a particular challenge to ordinary and lower income apartment households that "make do" with the use of plastic. From a large empirical study, this paper analyses households' own accounts, revealing the socio‐material entanglements of plastic with waste, space, and time management. The authors point to the importance of spatial dimensions of domestic practices and the ways in which transience entangles with practice, influencing the meanings and logics of home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As rural decline sweeps the world and draws public attention, it becomes necessary to consider the relationship between urbanization and rural development. The paper investigates this topic in China for the period 1989–2018. The research results find positive contribution of urbanization to rural economy in the research period but with a decreasing tendency. Compared to less developed areas, rural economy of developed regions has become less dependent on cities and can flourish in a larger context with the support of modern transportation and telecommunication technologies. However, those peripheral rural areas tend to face continuous and large‐scale rural–urban migration which has aggravated rural decline. Rural economic growth helps to decrease rural outmigration and people will stay in their hometown with available job opportunities to raise their families and maintain livelihood. The paper proposes balance‐friendly urbanization structure and diversified rural economy to improve rural resilience to meet the challenge of rural decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we contribute to recent debates on the geographies of discontent by examining the implications of urbanisation on the state as a territorial‐political community in the European context. Building on an Arendtian conception of politics, we argue that the emergence of the "urban" as a dominant spatio‐political imaginary has led to a narrowing of the conditions of politics and political agency within states. The urban imaginary has provoked selective spatio‐political discourses, geopolitical strategies, and policy practices that have resulted in the exclusion of certain social and spatial fractions of society from a shared sense of community and political agency within the state. To demonstrate this point, we empirically analysed the experience of political efficacy in Europe. The results of our analysis show that perceived external political efficacy is weakest in more rural settings and in regions with low GDP and a declining population. Accordingly, we suggest that policy measures ought to be directed against this sort of political alienation and should be used to create a stronger sense of political belonging and community. In this paper, we argue that the emergence of the "urban" as a dominant spatio‐political imaginary has led to a narrowing of the conditions of politics and political agency within states. The urban imaginary has provoked selective spatio‐political discourses, geopolitical strategies, and policy practices that have resulted in the exclusion of certain social and spatial fractions of society from a shared sense of community and political agency within the state. The results of our analysis show that perceived external political efficacy is weakest in more rural settings and in regions with low GDP and a declining population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether urbanization plays a role in determining the importance of each happiness domain on overall happiness. The analysis focuses on Italy. We exploit a multilevel model to consider regional heterogeneity in happiness determinants. We first verify whether a direct effect of urbanization exists on each specific components of happiness, as well as on overall happiness. Consistent with the findings in the literature, happiness decreases with urbanization. In the analysis of the mediating role, we find that the importance of satisfaction family explains more overall happiness in urban areas. On the contrary, satisfaction with health, friendships and environment gain more weight in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the oceanic character of Luanda's contemporary urbanism as a way of undoing continental entrapments in the study of cities. Tracing the lineage of an urban development initiative in the Angolan capital back to Brazil's Salvador da Bahia, the paper provides a look into how a Brazilian construction company turned to real estate to forge, export, and implement a distinctive mode of being and becoming urban across the Southern Atlantic. In doing this, the paper also makes emphatic the critical role played by oil extraction in the devising of urban development strategies on both sides of the Atlantic, which then opens up an enquiry into the direct and profound impact that sugar and slavery had in the making of Salvador. By seeing Luanda from Salvador, the aim of this paper is to flesh out enduring features of what is presented as a form of Southern Atlantic urbanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the determinants of the diffusion and intensity of the COVID‐19 at the country level, focusing on the role played by urban agglomeration, measured using three urban variables: percentage of the urban population, population density, and primacy. We estimate the influence of urban agglomeration on two outcome variables: cumulative number of cases and deaths per 100,000 inhabitants up to 31 December 2020, using both parametric and semiparametric models. We also explore possible spatial effects. The non‐linear effects of the urban variables on the intensity of the disease reveal non‐monotonous relationships, suggesting that it is the size of the urban system that is linked to a stronger incidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the response of plant diversity to urbanization is essential for conserving urban biodiversity. In this paper, a meta‐analysis of 34 articles and 163 observations regarding the impact of urbanization on plant diversity was conducted. The results revealed that urbanization had marked negative effects on plants. Urbanization had positive effects on introduced species and negative effects on native species. In the subgroup analysis, we found that trees responded better to the effect of urbanization than herbs and shrubs. There was no evidence that urban size, population density, nighttime light, and GDP per capita had moderating effects on plant richness. Based on meta‐regression analyses, native species in urban areas were less affected by urbanization at lower latitudes. Overall, urbanization had a marginally negative effect on plant abundance. The effects of urbanization on plant diversity during different stages of urban development were inconsistent. Our research shows that the suburbs play a crucial role in the urbanization gradient; there, plants survive with high species richness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The aetiology of multiple myeloma (MM) is unknown but various environmental exposures are suspected as risk factors. We present the first paper analysing the geographical distribution of MM in Denmark at the municipal level to investigate variations that could be explained by environmental exposures. Methods: Patients diagnosed with MM in Denmark during 2005–2020 were identified from nationwide registries and grouped into the 98 Danish municipalities based on residence. The age‐ and sex‐standardised incidence rate (SIR) of each municipality was compared to the national incidence in a funnel plot with 95% control limits. Differences in SIRs of rural, suburban, and urban areas were evaluated with incidence rate ratios. Results: In total, 5243 MM patients were included. Overall, we found a heterogeneous geographical distribution of MM and a potential hotspot in southern Denmark. This hotspot contains three municipalities with SIRs above the 95% control limit assuming considerably higher rate of MM compared to the national incidence rate. A significant higher SIR was found in rural areas compared to urban areas. Conclusion: The geographical distribution of MM in Denmark indicates that the risk of developing MM depends on place of residence probably due to environmental factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the urban theory of Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey to construct an urban perspective on labour geographies. Lefebvre understood work in a work–nonwork continuum beyond binarism, and Lefebvre and Harvey hailed the outpouring of working‐class agency from cities. However, they may have obscured the role of labour movements in urbanisation when identifying the living‐place (such as streets, neighbourhoods, or housing) as the primary seat of urban agency. Learning from labour geographers in the 1990s, I query this ambiguity to enhance the urban theory of Lefebvre and Harvey, conceive of the urban scale as the site of unfinished industrial/urban dialectics, and conceptualise labour agency as a producer of transformative continua in urbanisation. Interpreting Toyota's factories as rescaled pivots of industrial urbanisation, I explore how Japanese labour movements challenged just‐in‐time production, its union form, and its work/nonwork divides, producing new urbanising continua—even planetary ones—between different transformative agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New Silk Road, also called China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is the largest single infrastructure project since the Marshall Plan and an exemplar of infrastructure‐led development of a scope and scale with no precedent in modern history. The project is estimated to cost up to US$8 trillion, involve 130 countries and impact more than 65% of the world's population. Through novel combinations of infrastructure and industrial projects with investments in the urban built environment, the BRI is transforming urban space across the global South and North altering the social and urban geographies of cities at a historically unparalleled scale. Nonetheless, its role in driving global urban transformation remains fundamentally underexplored. Relevant geographical research is scarce and comparative approaches focusing on cities are in their infancy, leading researchers to talk about an 'anti‐urban' bias in contemporary BRI scholarship that prevents an in‐depth understanding of the initiative's true scope. This paper introduces the novel concept of Silk Road urbanisation and puts forward the need for a new research agenda that has the potential to transform geographical and urban research on infrastructure‐led development, urban transformation and inequality. The New Silk Road, also called China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is the largest single infrastructure project since the Marshall Plan and an exemplar of infrastructure‐led development. Through novel combinations of infrastructure and industrial projects with investments in the urban built environment, the BRI is transforming urban space across the Global South and North altering the social and urban geographies of cities at a historically unparalleled scale. Nonetheless, its role in driving global urban transformation remains fundamentally underexplored. This paper introduces the novel concept of Silk Road urbanization and puts forward the need for a new research agenda that has the potential to transform geographical and urban research on infrastructure‐led development, urban transformation and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper explores psychological processes that underpin the success of community change in the context of urban regeneration schemes. We adopt a social identity approach to develop an understanding of the ways in which social identity dynamics may impact upon peoples' experiences of regeneration, and what influence these identity processes have on the creation of new communities. Qualitative interviews, using thematic analysis as an analytic technique, were conducted with community members (n = 14) in a recently (2001–2011) regenerated area in the South‐West of England. Three overarching themes were identified: Patterns of identification, willingness to engage, and the notion of regeneration as an event. The research overall highlights the central role of group‐based identity in understanding the processes of regeneration and how this is experienced by different community members. Findings are discussed in relation to the impact regeneration schemes have on community members' sense of collective self, unity, and engagement. The research highlights the pivotal role of social identity processes in delivering successful and sustainable strategies of urban regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how right‐wing populist voting following the 2015 refugee wave was affected by regional characteristics, using data from a quasi‐natural experiment in Sweden. The results suggest that voting outcomes are heavily dependent on pre‐influx municipal characteristics. In localities with strong anti‐immigration sentiments during the 1990s refugee wave, as well as in areas with high crime rates before the refugee wave, there is a positive relationship between immigration rates and anti‐immigration voting. However, the immigration‐related increase in the nationalist vote is significantly smaller in depopulation areas. These polarizing effects on voting are exacerbated when considering immigration of young males. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically reviews the urban systems literature adopting graph‐theoretical conceptions of 'network analysis'. A network‐analytical approach allows specifying and measuring how cities interact, the importance and roles of cities in these interactions, and some of the key characteristics of the urban system as a whole. Throughout the paper, the focus is on 'world city network' research. After an overview of how network analysis first entered this literature and subsequently developed into a vibrant research agenda, the paper clarifies the use of network analysis by comparing two different network approaches. This is then used to discuss the potential and challenges/pitfalls associated with the use of network analysis, respectively. It is argued that the combination of careful abstraction and the methodological opportunities offered by network analysis offers geographers a powerful methodological toolkit. At the same time, a permanent appraisal of the real versus the alleged potential of network analysis is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a call for an urban political ecology (UPE) which engages more extensively with Earth's geological formations. As a material at the centre of global urbanisation process, sand is offered as a geological entry point. The paper presents an analysis of the urbanisation of sand, or the ways in which sand is brought into the urban realm, grounding this reading in Accra—a growing city on Ghana's Atlantic coast. Drawing from 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork, the paper charts the socio‐natural politics through which sand is first unearthed from the edges of the city—an extractive processes otherwise known as "sand winning" in Ghana. By examining the forms of power which govern uneven revenue flows to communities, the displacement of farming groups, the widespread loss of farmland and a contested regime of governance, the analysis exposes the socio‐natural politics through which the city's geological baseline is first unearthed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates whether firms have better access to bank credit in territories characterized by a larger degree of urbanization. It uses Italian bank‐firm data drawn from the Credit Register to devise an indicator of easiness of access to credit. The paper proposes an instrumental variable strategy that exploits as instruments past population density and urbanization driven by political economy considerations. The results show that urbanization positively affects access to credit for construction firms, whose collateral greatly benefits from thicker real estate markets. No impact is found for service and manufacturing firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high renewable penetration will cause the power system operation mode (PSOM) to change frequently. At present, the selection of PSOM mainly depends on the experience of relevant staff. However, selecting PSOM based on experience is difficult to comprehensively and elaborately analyze the possible PSOMs within a dispatching cycle, which inevitably invites troubles to the power system planning and dispatching. In this paper, a data‐driven analysis method is proposed, which integrates the techniques of preprocessing, dimensionality reduction, clustering, and data visualization of high‐dimensional data sets of power system operation. Simultaneously, qualitative and quantitative methods are used to analyze, evaluate the PSOM and their development laws. Finally, to verify the effectiveness of the proposed multi‐level refinement extraction method of PSOM, the normal power system operation mode (NPSOM), transition power system operation mode (TPSOM), extreme power system operation mode (EPSOM) are obtained and analyzed according to the real operation data of the urban power system. The abundant analysis results show that the proposed fine‐grained extraction method of PSOM is compelling, facilitating the power grid enterprise operation and planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different dimensions abound to examine the famous Feldstein–Horioka Puzzle. However, after intense discussions of the subject matter for more than three decades, researchers are yet to reach consensus on the validity or otherwise of savings–investment relationship. In this paper, we revisited the Feldstein–Horioka saving‐investment puzzle, and augment their investment equation with factors that drive capital mobility, such as globalization, foreign direct investment, and urbanization using more recent annual frequency time series data over the periods 1981–2018 in the case of Nigeria. We employed unit root test with structural breaks/regime shifts inherent in time series data and Autoregressive Distributed Lag Bounds Testing for co‐integration of empirical estimates. Results show existence of a long‐run equilibrium relationship among variables. Domestic savings, real income, and foreign direct investment reveal positive impact, while globalization and urbanization exhibit negative impact on domestic investment both in the short and long run. We find strong capital mobility among savings–investment relationship, thus render potential policy suggestions that would drive domestic investment and bring about sustainable economic growth in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates how the national urban hierarchies can be understood through the lens of connectivity within globally scaled economic networks. We first examine the global city network structure using a k‐core decomposition method. Values of k‐coreness are then used to understand the distribution of global connectivity within national urban systems. This is observed through a measure of statistical dispersion applied to a novel global dataset of 68,602 weighted headquarter‐subsidiary relations of 31,371 firms linking 4181 cities collected in 2019. Our results confirm the existence of a hierarchical core–periphery structure at a global scale, yet reveal varying degrees of hierarchy at a national scale. At a national scale, single‐core, double‐core or multi‐core network structures characterize the way in which national and global city networks intersect, indicating that there is a distinction between global cities as the core and urban‐systems‐as‐networks that connect nations to the global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the effect of urbanization on the surface air temperature (SAT) from 1951 to 2018 in the Philippines. The daily minimum temperature (Tmin) and daily maximum temperature (Tmax) records from 34 meteorological stations were used to derive extreme temperature indices. These stations were then classified as urban or rural based on satellite night‐lights. The results showed a significant difference in the SAT trends between urban and rural stations, indicative of the effect of urbanization in the country. Larger and more significant warming trends were observed in indices related to Tmin than those related to Tmax. In particular, the effects of urbanization were significant in the annual index series of Tmin, diurnal temperature range, minimum Tmin, percentage of days when Tmin was less than the 10th percentile (TN10p), percentage of days when Tmin was greater than 90th percentile (TN90p), and the number of coldest nights. The effects of urbanization were not as clear on the index series of maximum Tmax (TXx), minimum Tmax (TXn), percentage of days when Tmax was less than 10th percentile (TX10p), and the number of hottest days. The effects of urbanization on the annual series of extreme temperature indices were statistically significant at the 95% confidence level, with the exception of Tmax, TXn, TXx, TX10p, and the number of hottest days. Further analysis revealed that the effect of urbanization was the greatest during the DJF (December–January–February) season. These findings serve as a baseline study that focuses on the countrywide effect of urbanization on SAT trends in the Philippines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the effect of urbanization on the surface air temperature (SAT) from 1951 to 2018 in the Philippines. The daily minimum temperature (Tmin) and daily maximum temperature (Tmax) records from 34 meteorological stations were used to derive extreme temperature indices. These stations were then classified as urban or rural based on satellite night-lights. The results showed a significant difference in the SAT trends between urban and rural stations, indicative of the effect of urbanization in the country. Larger and more significant warming trends were observed in indices related to Tmin than those related to Tmax. In particular, the effects of urbanization were significant in the annual index series of Tmin, diurnal temperature range, minimum Tmin, percentage of days when Tmin was less than the 10th percentile (TN10p), percentage of days when Tmin was greater than 90th percentile (TN90p), and the number of coldest nights. The effects of urbanization were not as clear on the index series of maximum Tmax (TXx), minimum Tmax (TXn), percentage of days when Tmax was less than 10th percentile (TX10p), and the number of hottest days. The effects of urbanization on the annual series of extreme temperature indices were statistically significant at the 95% confidence level, with the exception of Tmax, TXn, TXx, TX10p, and the number of hottest days. Further analysis revealed that the effect of urbanization was the greatest during the DJF (December-January-February) season. These findings serve as a baseline study that focuses on the countrywide effect of urbanization on SAT trends in the Philippines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities are increasingly advancing multiple societal goals related to environmental sustainability, health, well‐being, and equity. However, there are few comprehensive data sets that address social inequality and equity across multiple infrastructure sectors, determinants, and outcomes, particularly at fine intra‐urban spatial scales. This paper: (1) Offers an overarching conceptualization of inequality and equity in multi‐sector urban systems; (2) Introduces a broad data framework to assess inequality and equity across social (S), ecological (E), infrastructural (I), and urban (U) form determinants (SEIU) and environment (E), health (H), well‐being (W), and economy and security (E) outcomes (EHWE), identifying a universe of >110 SEIU–EHWE data layers (variables) of interest; (3) Provides an illustrative data case study of a US city that synthesizes publicly available sources of the associated SEIU–EHWE data attributes, noting their availability/gaps at fine spatial scales, important to inform social inequality; (4) Discusses analytic methods to quantify inequality and spatial correlates across SEIU determinants and EHWE outcomes; and, (5) Demonstrates several use‐cases of the data framework and companion analytic methods through real‐world applied case studies that inform equity planning in applications ranging from energy sector investments to air pollution and health. The US data case study reveals data availability (covering 41 of the 113 data layers) as well as major gaps associated with EHWE outcomes at fine spatial scales, while the application examples demonstrate practical use. Overall, the SEIU–EHWE data framework provides an anchor for systematically gathering, analyzing, and informing multiple dimensions of inequality and equity in sustainable urban systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global health crisis due to the pandemic of the SARS‐CoV‐2 is associated with processes of urbanisation and globalisation. Globally well‐connected areas with high population densities are hence expected to be disproportionately affected by COVID‐19. This paper investigates the role of population density within the Netherlands, comparing hospitalisation and mortality related to COVID‐19 across municipalities. The paper finds that infections, hospitalisation and mortality related to COVID‐19 are not clearly correlated with the population density or urbanity of the municipality, also when controlling for age and public health factors. The paper concludes that while the public debate stresses the elevated risk of infections in cities, due to transgressive behaviour, the evidence in this paper suggests that the geography of the epidemic in the Netherlands is more complex. It speculates that the variation in urbanisation in most of the country might just be too small to expect significant differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the particular geographies associated with the COVID‐19 outbreak through the lens of cities that are products of relational urbanisation. This includes small but highly globalised cities, such as financial centres or hot spots of politics and diplomacy, which are usually situated between different political, economic or cultural systems and their boundaries. These cities experienced strong growth due to internationalisation and a dedicated politics of extraversion. Our argument is that such places are unusually affected by the current lock‐down, illustrated by two empirical cases, the cities of Dublin, Ireland, and Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. Both have experienced striking growth rates recently, but now suffer from disruption. Their development trajectories remain unclear, since a return to the 'old normal' seems unlikely, and the emergent 'new normal' calls for adaptation towards more state involvement in areas hitherto governed by the market. The paper addresses possible alternative geographies for both cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asserts that critical investigations into the urbanisation process should consider the actually existing ethics of the process itself, without defaulting to transcendent normative principles. Grounded in an ontology of immanence, as presented in Deleuze and Guattari's (9) political philosophy, I argue that attention must be paid to the production and transformation of normativity. Using the redevelopment of the South Lake Union (SLU) neighbourhood of Seattle – (in)famously home to Amazon, but largely envisioned and developed by Paul Allen's investment and philanthropic organisation, Vulcan – as an analytical starting point, this paper sketches out a profile of the "blue" dimension of the genesis of Seattle's environmental ethic, from early efforts to reshape the region's hydrology and address water pollution in Lake Washington, through efforts by governmental bodies and Vulcan to protect water quality and salmon habitat, and on to a large‐scale infrastructure project – the Elliott Bay Seawall replacement – that includes features to enhance biodiversity and ecological functioning in the nearshore environment. In tracking these movements, I identify the emergence of an explicitly post‐anthropocentric ethic from what initially appears as an aesthetic concern, while also highlighting the ongoing complexification of an earlier engineering ethic that dates back to the earliest attempts by settlers to manage the natural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of the recent evolution of social assistance in the developing world, looking at its complex typological configuration, which has interlinked with, and partly reflects the complex demographic and epidemiological transitions and rapid urbanization and economic convergence that many developing countries have exhibited over the past decades. The paper underscores the principles of the poverty focus of social assistance and presents an overview of existence evidence of first‐ and second‐order effects of social assistance, particularly in the domains of poverty, education, health, and labor markets. Moreover, the paper highlights the knowledge gaps with regard to the longer term and gender‐specific welfare effects of social assistance, and the redistributive effects, and the incentives and distortion mechanisms that transfer programs can generate in the labor and insurance markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the process of early urbanization in Oslo, Norway, during the initial period of early 11th–late 12th Century using a bioarchaeological approach. Through the use of isotope analyses performed on teeth and bone from 20 humans buried in Oslo during the first phases of urban settlement, individual dietary change and mobility are reconstructed. Oslo is traditionally perceived as one of many urban settlements initiated by royal power, and this paper contributes to this discussion by investigating the origin of the first settlers, and also how the early urban process affected their way of living. Results suggest that most individuals in the study were of local origin, and had a constant diet throughout life from childhood to its last phase. The absence of individual dietary change sharply contrasts the dynamic dietary patterns observed in people from the Viking age. Dietary variation between individuals does suggest, however, social differences among the early urban population of Oslo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late medieval period, Holland experienced substantial socio‐economic change. While the region was largely undeveloped prior to 1200 CE, the period after was characterised by extensive urbanisation and flourishing international trade, changes that would have impacted many aspects of life. This paper investigates the effect of these changes on diet by comparing skeletal collections from the early/central medieval rural village of Blokhuizen (800–1200 CE) to the late medieval urban town of Alkmaar (1448–1572 CE) using a combination of the prevalence and location of carious lesions (nteeth = 3475) and stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data (n = 50). Results show that the urban Alkmaar population had a significantly higher caries frequency (7.4% vs. 16.1%), starting at a younger age. Moreover, Alkmaar had significantly more approximal caries. These results point to increased consumption of cariogenic products, such as sugars and starches, by the urban citizens. Dietary differences are also demonstrated by the stable isotope data. Alkmaar individuals have significantly enriched δ15N ratios and more variable δ13C ratios compared with rural Blokhuizen. The elevated δ15N values may be due to increased consumption of fish or animals such as omnivorous pigs and chickens. The combination of caries and isotopic data points to clear changes in diet suggesting that urban individuals in the late medieval period had a substantially different diet compared with early rural inhabitants from the same area. Specifically, an increase in market dependence, availability of international trade products, and the growth of commercial fishing in the late medieval period may have contributed to this dietary shift. Future research should include a late medieval rural population to better understand the effects of late medieval socio‐economic developments outside of the urban environment. This study demonstrates that the integration of palaeopathology and stable isotopic research provides a more complete understanding of dietary changes in medieval Holland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In terms of spatial imaginaries and as physical infrastructure, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) spurs new geographies of comparative urban study. Irrespective of whether it is the primary driver for developments carried out in its name, 'the BRI' is a label that serves to bring previously unassociated project sites and non‐place‐based infrastructural developments into comparative relation. This paper considers some of the possibilities presented by the BRI for comparative urban studies in – and from – Asia. Building upon insights from postcolonial urban studies, planetary urbanisation and inter‐Asia cultural studies, I sketch two key possibilities of the BRI as (comparative urban) method. The first concerns the BRI as a series of openings to much (spatially) wider and historically deeper forms of comparison. Second, I argue that BRI as method impels forms of urban comparison beyond conventionally territorialised units of analysis at a variety of scales, including both the city and the (area studies) region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malthusian population theory states that, when population growth exceeds the growth of the means of production, socioeconomic development will be hindered. This paper analyzes this issue from the perspective of uncoordinated urbanization. We used the data available for 262 cities at the prefecture level and above in China, for the years 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015. We empirically investigated the relationship between uncoordinated urbanization and urban economic growth. We also examined how this relationship is affected by natural resource constraints. The research results show that there are temporal and spatial differences in the distribution of uncoordinated urbanization in China. From a temporal perspective, from 2000 to 2015, 45.61% of China's 262 cities show under‐urbanization, while 36.45% of cities show over‐urbanization. However, the number of cities with over‐urbanization is growing. From a spatial perspective, the number of cities in the northeastern region with over‐urbanization is declining. Conversely, the number of cities with over‐urbanization in Beijing in the central and southeastern coastal areas is increasing. Empirical research shows that uncoordinated urbanization and urban economic growth have an inverted U‐shaped relationship. Abundant natural resources can make the inverted U‐shaped curve of uncoordinated urbanization and economic growth flatter. The "resource curse" seems to occur only under high levels of uncoordinated urbanization (over‐urbanization). For some cities where there is under‐urbanization, abundant natural resources are conducive to urban economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses key methodological issues with nodalising interaction data of urban networks to produce a state‐of‐the‐art settlement geography of the Netherlands. We operationalise the three‐systems model that analyses functional settlement geographies through the interaction between the daily urban system, the central place system and the export base system. We utilise theoretically‐informed selections of spatial interactions derived from travel survey data at the finely‐grained postcode level. After examining the methodological challenge of the node‐inclusivity dilemma, we estimate the causal mechanisms that geographically structure each system and determine which spatial interactions should be assigned to nodes (containment) and edges (connectivity). The three systems produce different regionalisations that are neither mutually exclusive nor perfectly nested. Further analysis of the multiplexity of the three systems reveals the importance of the imbricated boundaries between the urban subsystems. We argue that these interplaces deserve more attention as they are particularly sensitive to changes in urbanisation trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the encounter between different and unequally positioned trajectories of urbanization has resulted in extreme forms of migrant labor exploitation, recently identified as 'human trafficking'. Specifically, it examines how a landscape of such exploitation developed in Japan between the late 1970s and early 2000s as Filipina migrants came to work in a growing sex industry for foreign women. In this article I bring a feminist 'encounters approach' to planetary urbanization theory to argue that this landscape of exploitation is the consequence of planetary urban involution, a dark dynamic produced through the frictive encounter of discrepantly focused urbanizations in Japan and the Philippines. In this process, as the excesses of postcolonial urbanization in the Philippines rub against those of urbanization in Japan, a former metropole, labor exploitation intensifies, involutes and grows tightly wound in tandem with contemporary geopolitical inequalities. Planetary urban involution thus evokes the grim consequences that occur as growing numbers of displaced and dispossessed postcolonial subjects are drawn into 'developed' and 'globalized' capitalist economies, where they are widely viewed as disposable workers. In this dynamic, power and domination are exercised at the interface of the discrepant configurations of desire and inequality produced through differently situated urbanization processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper reports how we applied systems dynamics methods to gain insight into the complexity of obesity‐related behaviors in youth, including diet, physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep, by integrating a literature review into causal loop diagrams (CLDs). Results showed that the CLDs consisted of multiple subsystems and three types of dynamics appeared, including (1) feedback loops, (2) connections between feedback loops and subsystems, and (3) mechanisms. We observed clear similarities in the dynamics for the four behaviors in that they relate to "traditional" subsystems, such as home and school environments, as well as to newly added subsystems, including macroeconomics, social welfare, and urban systems. The CLDs provided insights that can support the development of intervention strategies, including (1) the confirmation that a range of mechanisms cover and connect multiple levels and settings, meaning that there is no silver bullet to address obesity; (2) understanding of how interventions in one particular setting, such as school, might be influenced by the interactions with other settings, such as urban systems; and (3) a comprehensive view of (un)intended consequences. This way of framing the problem will assist moving towards public health interventions that respond to and operate in the complexity of the real world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the research literature analysing the uneven geographical distribution of cultural industries across the global urban system. We begin by discussing the two major conceptual links between cultural industries and urban economies: (1) production processes becoming more flexible and specialised, and (2) the symbolic‐oriented and place‐rooted identities of cultural products. This has provided the backcloth for a wide‐ranging urban‐geographical research agenda exploring cultural industries, and here the focus is on how these industries are unevenly distributed, implemented and shaped across the global urban system. Cultural industries' dependence on a large pool of creative labour, extensive local networks of suppliers, access to tacit knowledge, and synergies based on spatial proximity all strengthen their agglomeration in a limited number of major metropolitan areas. However, the cultural economy also increasingly thrives in a range of smaller and remote cities as these have succeeded integrating into global cultural production networks and/or carved out a niche in increasingly differentiated consumer markets. In addition, because the economic importance of cultural production is expanding rapidly across the globe, we are seeing an increasingly polycentric urban geography with new global cultural centres emerging on the map. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As economic growth centres, the Southeast Asian cities feature high population pressure, unsustainable land use, environmental degradation, and large ecological footprints. It is difficult to manage environmental health and basic services for urban dwellers, and ensure optimum flow of ecosystem services in the context of rapid, unplanned, and haphazard urbanization. These challenges are particularly multifaceted in the developing countries of Southeast Asian region. This study, based on secondary sources, adopted multidisciplinary lenses, such as geographical information systems, socio‐economic perspective, and sustainability science to examine the population situation, land use change pattern, and drivers of environmental degradation in the Southeast Asian cities as well as the Dhaka megacity, and brought forth a fresh perspective to look into contemporary urban ecosystems, population dynamics, environmental health, and sustainability. It also focused on identifying the commonalities among the cities under study to create a common understanding towards promoting collaborative urban development. This study shows that the urbanization process in the Southeast Asia region is taking place mostly in an unplanned and haphazard manner. With little concern for nature, life‐supporting ecological systems, and the environment, urban spatial growth continues unabated. The data surveyed and discussed in this paper shows that the current style of urbanization in Southeast Asia can best be called unsustainable. The findings also suggest that the general wellbeing and welfare of the current and future generations in Southeast Asian cities as well as in Dhaka is at risk. The paper recommends concerted efforts towards making the urbanization process sustainable, including better urban planning, policymaking, and international and regional cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bridging debates on urban sovereignty and urban informality, this paper argues that relationships between sovereignty and informality may not reside exclusively in the way the sovereign state decides to allow or forbid informality, but also in the way sovereignty is distributed among a range of state and non‐state actors. Drawing upon fieldwork on the early‐2010s management of displaced Romanian Romani families in two emergency camps in the city of Montreuil (France), the paper shows how the NGO responsible for managing one camp acted as sovereign power, allowing a number of informal activities to thrive within its confines. By contrast, inside the other camp, managed by another NGO that resolutely implemented state directives, only formal activities took place. Building on Dean's (2010) concept of 'disaggregated sovereignty', the paper mobilizes this disjuncture as a case for critically examining how the 'state of exception' takes shape beyond the state's grip. A subtext running throughout is the parallel between the very first camps for civilians in nineteenth‐century colonized territories and these twenty‐first‐century camps for Roma in Europe—both elicited a state of exception partially predicated on camp dwellers' perceived ethnic/racial homogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early part of the twentieth century, South African cities were segregated in accordance with British city planning concepts that embodied the belief that social order can be manipulated through the urban form. This paper surveys the history of South African planning practices to understand the spread of segregation policies and practices. Whereas scholars tend to agree that the apartheid city (post−1948) is a more highly organized and structured version of the colonial city (pre−1910), the literature lacks consensus on the development of the segregated city (1910−1948) within South Africa. How did concepts of segregation circulate and why was it implemented with such consistency? Accordingly, this paper employs concepts of policy mobilities to trace historical configurations in South Africa to international influences. The focus on the circuits of knowledge explains how concepts and designs transplanted from elsewhere helped create the form of South African cities today. Understanding the movement of planning ideas through policy mobilities furthers geographical understandings of historical circulation processes, the role of the local actors, and policy mobilities failure. This history of learning also challenges the assumption that South African cities are unique and in so doing opens the doors for knowledge sharing between postcolonial cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]