#USFblog
LightNews LightNews
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
🆕 New #USFblog post: "Vital grounds: Revaluing urban soils in the afterlife of mining"

Dr Anastasiya Halauniova on a USF Urban Urgencies project in Newcastle upon Tyne. 🌱

🔗 Read here: zurl.co/3BCU3
👉 Learn more: zurl.co/ySffE

#UrbanStudies #UrbanStudiesFoundation #USF #USFUrbanUrgencies
Tile with the text "USF Blog", the title "Vital grounds: Revaluing urban soils in the afterlife of mining" and the author name Anastasiya Halauniova, over a photograph of a roadside construction site. A lorry stands behind a mound of excavated soil and orange safety netting, with large green trees and a blue glass tower behind. The USF logo is in the top right corner. Dark blue tile with the label "USF Blog" and the USF logo, and white text reading: "Soil remediation is not a process of returning soils to an imagined 'pristine' condition, a condition that may not be attainable, but a process through which new regimes of value, new forms of urban governance, and new multispecies relations are produced."
October 6, 2026 at 1:55 PM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
🆕 New #USFblog post: "Urbanisation beyond Nusantara: a new, more sustainable growth machine?"

Looking beyond administrative boundaries, former #USFInternationalFellow Dr Galuh Syahbana Indraprahasta explores the 'Tri-City Superhub' in Indonesia.

🔗 Read here: zurl.co/xXt3d

#UrbanStudies #USF
Two large sculptures frame a view of Nusantara's government district, with hills and trees in the background. Text overlay reads 'USF Blog: Urbanisation beyond Nusantara — A new, more sustainable growth machine?' by Dr Galuh Syahbana Indraprahasta. USF Blog quote tile on a grey background: 'Taking a city-region lens to examining the broader urbanisation of Nusantara offers a fresh perspective and empirical insights, especially since Nusantara and its surrounding areas are still in the early stages of development.'
September 30, 2026 at 2:00 PM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
🆕 #USFBlog: "Repairing the city? From shiny new infrastructure to the everyday labour of keeping infrastructure 'alive'"

Former #USFInternationalFellow Dr Lazarus Jambadu on water infrastructure maintenance, politics, and urban inequality across Accra and Dar es Salaam.

🔗 zurl.co/XJUEG

#USF
Photo of a partially dug-up road in Accra or Dar es Salaam, with a man in a white shirt standing beside the excavation, a red barrier, and street life in the background including a motorbike taxi and a truck. Text overlay reads "USF Blog: Repairing the city — From shiny new infrastructure to the everyday labour of keeping infrastructure 'alive'," credited to Dr Lazarus Jambadu. Dark blue tile with white text reading a quote from the USF blog: "Perhaps what we call a 'system' is actually a constantly moving assemblage of materials, people, institutions, skills, and improvisations held together through maintenance and repair work. Thus, the city works because someone is constantly working to make it work." USF Blog label in top left.
September 25, 2026 at 11:53 AM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
🔔 New on #USFBlog: "Open Kitchen: Weaving protection and care for communities on the move"

Prof Andrés Salcedo Fidalgo, Liliana Gaviria, and Karol Viviana Cubillos Gutiérrez on a USF Urban Urgencies project in Bogotá.🇨🇴

🔗 Read here: zurl.co/TJh3T
🔗 Learn more: zurl.co/efcIn

#USF #USFUrbanUrgencies
USF Blog graphic for "Open Kitchen: Weaving protection and care for communities on the move" by Andrés Salcedo Fidalgo, showing a group of people seated around a long table in an outdoor community space with brick walls and bamboo structures in Bogotá, Colombia. Photo credit: Fundación Casa B. Urban Studies Foundation logo in the top right corner. Quote graphic from the USF Blog post "Open Kitchen", displaying the text: "By transforming vulnerability into leadership, we hope to rebuild confidence, amplify community agency and compel meaningful public policy responses." White text on a grey background with the Urban Studies Foundation logo.
September 23, 2026 at 12:00 PM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
🔔 New #USFBlog post: "Withdrawing from the city: Co-researching social withdrawal in Osaka and Seoul"

Dr Didi Kyoung-Ae Han on a USF Urban Urgencies project in Osaka and Seoul. 🇯🇵🇰🇷

🔗 Read here: zurl.co/k3Fz7
👉 Learn more: zurl.co/yqqSR

#UrbanStudies #UrbanStudiesFoundation #USF #USFUrbanUrgencies
USF Blog graphic for "Withdrawing from the city: Co-researching social withdrawal in Osaka and Seoul" by Dr Didi Kyoung-Ae Han, illustrated with pencil drawings of figures with Japanese text, on a white background with the Urban Studies Foundation logo. Drawing credit: Kumiko. Quote graphic from the USF Blog post "Withdrawing from the city", displaying the text: "Like canaries in a coal mine, withdrawing individuals are the first to sense in their bodies the overload that capitalist urban metabolism produces." Dark text on a light blue background with the Urban Studies Foundation logo.
September 16, 2026 at 12:00 PM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
🆕 New #USFBlog post: "PRIVATEVICTIONS: Confronting the privatisation of evictions and building tenant power in Spain"

Dr Ana Santamarina on "PRIVATEVICTIONS", a USF Urban Urgencies project. 🇪🇸

🔗 Read here: zurl.co/Lkcdz
🔗 Learn more: zurl.co/yCLr3

#UrbanStudies #USF #UrbanUrgencies #Housing
USF Blog graphic for "PRIVATEVICTIONS: Confronting the privatisation of evictions and building tenant power in Spain" by Ana Santamarina, showing a large crowd of housing rights protesters wearing Sindicato de Inquilinas de Madrid t-shirts and carrying banners at a demonstration in Spain. Photo credit: Alberto Escudilla. Urban Studies Foundation logo in the top right corner. Quote graphic from the USF Blog post "PRIVATEVICTIONS", displaying the text: "Antisquatting companies have emerged as a still largely unexplored mechanism of housing dispossession. Hired by property owners, property managers, real-estate investors and, in some cases, large investment funds, they are used to empty buildings, recover possession outside or at the margins of formal judicial procedures and accelerate the revalorisation of housing assets." White text on a dark navy background with the Urban Studies Foundation logo.
September 4, 2026 at 1:00 PM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
🆕 New #USFBlog post: "Listening to women's narratives of urban collapse in Tripoli, Lebanon"

Ms Joana Dabaj on "Urban collapse, care, and climate: Women's narratives of polycrises in Tripoli", a USF Urban Urgencies project.

🔗 Read here: zurl.co/hhn9O
🔗 Learn more: zurl.co/YgbFN

#USF #UrbanStudies
USF Blog graphic for "Listening to women's narratives of urban collapse in Tripoli, Lebanon" by Joana Dabaj, showing a woman in a blue abaya painting a mural on a wall in Tripoli. Photo credit: ©CatalyticAction & Ruwwad, photo by Tharaa Captan. Urban Studies Foundation logo in the top right corner. Quote graphic from the USF Blog post "Listening to women's narratives of urban collapse in Tripoli, Lebanon", displaying the text: "Rather than viewing women as passive recipients of assistance, the project seeks to recognise them as key urban actors and knowledge holders. Their experiences reveal not only the impacts of prolonged crises but also the everyday practices of care, adaptation, and solidarity that sustain families, neighbourhoods, and communities under extraordinary pressure." White text on a grey background with the USF logo.
August 25, 2026 at 12:00 PM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
📖 New #USFblog guest post by Julia Strutz and Zena Asswad: "Studying cities at war: The destruction of knowledge infrastructures and exclusions"

👉 Read the blog post: zurl.co/8lXXT
📚 Access the publication: zurl.co/EDM5X
ℹ️ Learn more: zurl.co/QDjcV

#UrbanStudies #UrbanStudiesFoundation #USF
Title slide for the USF blog post "Studying cities at war: The destruction of knowledge infrastructures and exclusions" by Julia Strutz and Zena Asswad, over a dark green aerial satellite image of a city with a river running through it. USF logo in top right corner. Quote slide on a dark green background reading: "Scholars were not only documenting violence; they were living through it. The emotional labour of conducting research while protecting families, navigating censorship, or surviving bombardment became inseparable from the intellectual labour of analysis. Academic networks transformed into systems of collective care, sustaining researchers who were otherwise isolated or endangered." USF logo in top right corner.
July 24, 2026 at 2:15 PM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
🆕 #USFBlog: "Two decades of southern urban theory: Notes beyond informality"
Dr Sushmita Pati, Dr Anwesha Ghosh, Dr Mukta Naik, and Dr Chandrima Mukhopadhyay on a USF-funded workshop in Delhi examining southern urbanism as a subfield: its tensions, its evolution, and its limits.

🔗 zurl.co/VesaG
USF Blog graphic for "Two decades of southern urban theory: Notes beyond informality", displayed over a photograph of a busy street scene in an Indian city with people, stray dogs, and a cow. Photo credit: Gayatri Malhotra via Unsplash. Urban Studies Foundation logo in the top right corner. Quote graphic from the USF Blog post "Two decades of southern urban theory", displaying the text: "The workshop unveiled an anxiety among urban studies scholars about what 'southern urbanism' means, who it speaks for, and whether it risks replicating the very universalisms it seeks to contest." White text on a dark blue background with the Urban Studies Foundation logo.
July 20, 2026 at 12:00 PM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
🆕 #USFblog post: "From the littoral, making Coastal Commons"

Dr Ulises Moreno-Tabarez and Dr Dulce María Quintero Romero introduce a Special Feature in City emerging from Coastal Commons, a seminar series supported by a #USFSeminarSeriesAwards grant.
🔗 zurl.co/BMDeA
#UrbanStudies #USF
USF blog post titled "From the littoral, making Coastal Commons" on the background of a dimly lit altar adorned with flowers, candles, and offerings in a traditional setting. Quote from the USF blog post: "We did not want theory to leave the coast, have its language cleaned up elsewhere, and return only as explanation. We wanted theory to remain answerable to the people who made it possible."
May 22, 2026 at 1:00 PM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
📢 New #USFblog post: “What makes the good city?”

Dr Andrew Tucker discusses "Intersections on the Periphery: the Good City in a Time of Crisis", a seminar series supported by a #USFSeminarSeriesAwards grant.

🔗 Read more: https://ow.ly/LkvR50Z0cV3

#UrbanStudies #UrbanStudiesFoundation #USF
"What makes the good city?" USF blog post title over a dense urban cityscape at sunset with layered buildings under a dramatic cloudy sky. Held across two workshops, the series brought together established and emerging scholars from diverse geographical contexts to grapple with how urbanisation manifests at the peripheries of cities, and the central role these spaces play in contemporary urban growth.
May 15, 2026 at 3:01 PM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
🆕 New #USFblog post: "Making space for Coastal Commons"

Dr Ulises Moreno-Tabarez reflects on Coastal Commons, a seminar series supported by #USFSeminarSeriesAwards.

🔗 https://www.urbanstudiesfoundation.org/2026/04/29/making-space-for-coastal-commons/

#UrbanStudies #UrbanStudiesFoundation #USF
USF blog post 'Making Space for Coastal Commons' by Ulises Moreno-Tabarez, featuring a photo of three people collaborating over a table with a laptop and a large piece of paper featuring map drawings and text in Spanish. Quote emphasising giving voice to local authors, artists, activists, and students to publish from their own perspectives.
April 30, 2026 at 12:02 PM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
📉 How does financing transform a public service into a "commodified corridor"?

In this new #USFblog post, former #USFInternationalFellow Zhengli Huang reflects on her research in Kenya, comparing the SGR and the Nairobi Expressway. 🇰🇪

https://ow.ly/KOuZ50YH1Rr
#Kenya #Infrastructure #PPP
“... financing does not simply enable infrastructure—it reorganises control, redistributes risk, and reshapes access. In the case of the expressway, the PPP model effectively transforms a public infrastructure into a revenue-generating asset under private control. This shifts its orientation from a collective urban service toward a commodified, selectively accessible corridor.” Flyer with USF logo for the blog "Estranging infrastructure through writing and publishing" on a picture of the Nairobi Expressway by Zhengli Huang; and the quote "... financing does not simply enable infrastructure—it reorganises control, redistributes risk, and reshapes access. In the case of the expressway, the PPP model effectively transforms a public infrastructure into a revenue-generating asset under private control. This shifts its orientation from a collective urban service toward a commodified, selectively accessible corridor.”
April 14, 2026 at 11:16 AM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
👉 New on the #USFBlog 🥂

In this guest blog, Naama Blatman, Sage Ponder & Suraya Scheba reflect on "Reparative Urban Futures," a #USF-supported workshop bringing scholars and community organisers together to rethink infrastructure, abolition, and repair from the ground up.

📖 ow.ly/tHov50XMIY2
Flyer with USF logo for the USF blog "Reparative urban futures: reconfiguring infrastructures and institutions towards liberation" and the quote "“Communities are already doing the critical work of repairing urban infrastructure while envisioning pathways towards reparative futures. As scholars, we must go beyond simply learning and documenting what communities are doing; they are not just knowledge holders. They are knowledge producers and grounded city planners. “ on a Illustration from ‘Threads and Seeds,’ zine prepared for the Reparative Urban Futures community forum, by Anna Carlson, shared with permission. Copyright Flyer with USF logo for the USF blog "Reparative urban futures: reconfiguring infrastructures and institutions towards liberation" and the quote "“Communities are already doing the critical work of repairing urban infrastructure while envisioning pathways towards reparative futures. As scholars, we must go beyond simply learning and documenting what communities are doing; they are not just knowledge holders. They are knowledge producers and grounded city planners. “ on a Illustration from ‘Threads and Seeds,’ zine prepared for the Reparative Urban Futures community forum, by Anna Carlson, shared with permission. Copyright
December 22, 2025 at 9:45 AM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
🌍 New on the #USFBlog!
Former #USFInternationalFellow Michael Osei Asibey reflects on his research into informal e-waste recycling and nature-based solutions for climate resilience, carried out under the mentorship of Patrick Brandful Cobbinah.
👉 ow.ly/cpNl50XExCZ

#NatureBasedSolutions #Ewaste
Flyer with USF logo for the USF Blog "Extending the dialogue of informality, e-waste, and nature-based solutions" and the quote "“While I was aware that informal systems, particularly in waste management, are central to livelihoods in cities like Accra and Kumasi, I had not fully explored their potential to contribute to climate adaptation through ecological approaches. The Fellowship offered me the space, resources, and intellectual community to advance this agenda, and in the process, to situate African urban experiences more centrally within global urban studies debates.” on a picture by Keron Achiaa Flyer with USF logo for the USF Blog "Extending the dialogue of informality, e-waste, and nature-based solutions" and the quote "“While I was aware that informal systems, particularly in waste management, are central to livelihoods in cities like Accra and Kumasi, I had not fully explored their potential to contribute to climate adaptation through ecological approaches. The Fellowship offered me the space, resources, and intellectual community to advance this agenda, and in the process, to situate African urban experiences more centrally within global urban studies debates.” on a picture by Keron Achiaa
December 8, 2025 at 8:30 AM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
🔔New in the #USFBlog!
“Urban politics and negotiated stateness: comparative perspectives across Africa and Eastern Europe”
👉 ow.ly/2P6o50WVrW2

🌍Check the 1st event of the Series!
"Decentring Urban Politics: Thinking with & beyond Eastern Europe and Africa"
📅 15–16 Sept 2025
🔗 ow.ly/5Q8b50WVrW0
Flyer with USF logo for the EVENT "Decentring Urban Politics: Thinking with and beyond Eastern Europe and Africa " This seminar series, funded by the Urban Studies Foundation, brings together scholars working on Africa and Eastern Europe to explore how cities are shaped by state actors and political dynamics. 15 September 2025, 9:00 (GMT+3) Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia In Person Picture taken from UCL web: https://urban-politics-and-negotiated-stateness.notion.site/Urban-Politics-and-Negotiated-Stateness-Comparative-Perspectives-across-Africa-and-Eastern-Europe-263016d5228480849395c0b07d4b978f
September 12, 2025 at 8:45 AM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
🔔New on the #USFBlog: In this guest post, Dr Priscila Izar, Prof Paula Freire Santoro, and Dr Elinorata Mbuya discuss their research on how urban transformations in peripheral areas impact marginalized women, a project supported by a #USFSeminarSeriesAwards grant.
👉https://ow.ly/Ilpm50VbLIu
[Image description: Flyer with USF logo and the quote: "We adopted this concept [feminist urban struggles] to describe the everyday, multiple strategies and articulations often led by women to simultaneously transform and protect their peripheral territories while also facing intersectional violence." on a Photo of UMM activists taken by Amanda Silber Bleich, 15 March 2024.]
March 6, 2025 at 1:37 PM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
USF announces 2024's Knowledge Mobilization Awards. The projects are designed to build on the outputs of previous USF-funded research by expanding its reach and facilitating its social impact beyond the academic world. Check the latest #USFBlog: ow.ly/chO950REfUa
Flyer with the USF logo and the quote, "These funded proposals often feature collaborations among multiple individuals and organizations, addressing a wide range of themes, such as democracy, domestic work, popular mapping, port cities, queerness, and more. " on a photo of purple and gray small circle pattern via Flickr by shaireproductions.
May 14, 2024 at 5:29 PM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
📢 New on #USFBlog! Check our latest guest post, where the "Writing Urban India" organizers describe their collective initiatives. Learn about their fellowship program, designed to empower early career scholars to create publishable academic works. ow.ly/TjHh50RbWy1
Picture description: Flyer with the USF logo and the quote, "The Writing Urban India programme demonstrates that developing writing competenPicture description: Flyer with the USF logo and the quote, "The Writing Urban India programme demonstrates that developing writing competence among early career scholars requires targeted technical knowledge of writing and publication processes as well as the sustained support of mentors and peers." Photo via Flickr by Nicolas Mirguet.
April 11, 2024 at 12:31 PM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
Explore the latest #USFBlog post by Katherine Brickell and Mel Nowicki on "Debt Trap Urbanism." Their research on homelessness, temporary accommodation, and debt, supported by a Pandemics and Cities grant, unveils the ties between housing and financial struggles. Online here: ow.ly/56R650QNtaU
Flyer with the USF logo and the quote, "For families experiencing homelessness, debt is not a choice. Rather, it has become a necessity of survival. Women aren’t failing; women and children are being failed. " on a Photo by Anthony Luvera
March 8, 2024 at 1:50 PM
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
#USFBlog "The city after #COVID-19: Vulnerability and urban governance in Chicago, Toronto, and Johannesburg" Profs Roger Keil, Xuefei Ren, and Philip Harrison discuss the critical role of municipal institutions and their civil society partners during Covid. ow.ly/2klA50QCNBB
Flyer with the quote, "What kinds of social, spatial, and institutional issues were revealed and exacerbated by the pandemic in Chicago, Johannesburg, and Toronto?", a USF logo on a background with an image of Chicago by Thomas Hawk via Flickr.
February 20, 2024 at 2:19 PM