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Members

Jean-Paul Addie

JEAN-PAUL ADDIE

Assistant Professor
Urban Studies Institute

Georgia State University

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MICHAEL

GLASS

Senior Lecturer & Director
Urban Studies 

University of Pittsburgh

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JEN

NELLES

Research Fellow

Management School

University of Sheffield

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  • ADAM BROWN (Cambridge Econometrics)
    Economics, Aggomeration, Transportation Adam Brown is Head of Infrastructure Modelling at Cambridge Econometrics with a particular interest in the way infrastructure interventions can be utilised in conjunction with other public policy to drive forward inclusive and sustainable economic growth at a sub-national level. He mainly leads studies for departments of central government, subnational transport bodies, or local enterprise partnerships or local authority districts. In the field of transport modelling, Adam has authored studies for the Department of Transport to reconceptualise and re-estimate their handling of agglomeration effects, for Transport for the South East to develop the economic vision underpinning their 2050 Transport Plan, and two studies for Highways England to quantitatively appraise specific route options. He also led the original economic analysis upon which the National Infrastructure Commission developed their Cambridge-Oxford corridor concept. Current projects Adam is leading include the Research and Innovation workstream of the Northern Powerhouse Independent Economic Review, the Housing and Employment Land Growth Needs Assessment for the Oxfordshire Plan 2050, and a PIN-funded project to investigate the relationship between economic geography and productivity at the microscale level. Adam has an Masters degree in theoretical physics, a PhD in systems dyna mics modelling, and a first-class honours degree in Economics from the London School of Economics.
  • BUELL CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE (Columbia University GSAPP)
    Columbia University's Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture was founded in 1982. Its mission is to advance the interdisciplinary study of American architecture, urbanism, and landscape. A separately endowed entity within the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, it sponsors research projects, workshops, public programs, publications, and awards. In recent years, the Center has convened issue-oriented conversations around matters of public concern, such as housing, that are addressed to overlapping constituencies including academics, students, professionals, and members of the general public. The Buell Center’s research and programming articulate facts and frameworks that modify key assumptions governing the architectural public sphere—that is, the arena in which informed public analysis and debate about architecture and urbanism takes place. Buell Center projects utilize a variety of formats, such as specialized academic conferences, small meetings, larger public events, and publications, depending on the issues and audience at hand. In all cases, they offer a context for the study of American architecture that brings underlying issues to light and enables architecture's various interconnected publics to gain a greater understanding of its cultural significance. NOIR-Relevant Projects POWER: Infratructure in America POWER challenges participants to think about how infrastructure relates to life across a series of intersecting concerns, including democratic governance and climate justice. From border walls to oil pipelines to microchips, technical infrastructures govern life in myriad ways. Objects of intense political, social, and economic contestation, these systems distribute power in both senses of the word: as energy and as force. Concentrating on the United States but extending internationally, this website brings together a multimedia collection of essays, events, initiatives, and resources, offering overlapping windows onto how “America” is constructed infrastructurally to exclude neighbors and to divide citizens. But infrastructures can also connect. Organized in a modular fashion as an open access resource for learning, teaching, and acting, the website’s contents enable visitors to better understand the complex webs of power shaping our lives and the lives of others. Change begins with connecting the dots.
  • EMMA COLVEN (University of Oklahoma)
    Emma Colven is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International and Area Studies, University of Oklahoma. As an urban geographer and political ecologist, her research explores themes of water politics, real estate and urban development, adaptation to environmental threats, and environmental justice in cities of the global South. Her current research project examines and compares the relationship between market-led reform, speculative urban development, and water crises in Bangalore and Jakarta. The aim of the project is to understand how speculative urbanism impacts water regimes, and how water crises in turn shape real estate markets and investment flows. For more about her research, visit: www.emmacolven.com. NOIR-relevant publications Colven E (2020) Subterranean Infrastructures in a Sinking City: The Politics of Visibility in Jakarta. Critical Asian Studies. Colven E (2020) Thinking beyond success and failure: Dutch water expertise and friction in postcolonial Jakarta. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2399654420911947 Colven E and DT Irawaty (2019) Critical spatial practice and urban poor politics: (Re)Imagining housing in a flood-prone Jakarta. Society and Space: Critical Geographies in Action. URL: https://www.societyandspace.org/articles/critical-spatial-practice-and-urban-poor-politics-re-imagining-housing-in-a-flood-prone-jakarta Colven E (2017) “Understanding the allure of big infrastructure: Jakarta’s Great Garuda Sea Wall project.” Water Alternatives 10(2): 250 – 264. URL: http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/alldoc/articles/vol10/v10issue2/354-a10-2-4/file
  • THERESA ENRIGHT (University of Toronto)
    Theresa Enright is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. Her research examines urban and regional politics with a focus on transportation and mobility. Enright is the author of The Making of Grand Paris: Metropolitan Urbanism in the Twenty-first Century (MIT 2016) and editor (with Ugo Rossi) of The Urban Political: Ambivalent Spaces of Late Neoliberalism (Palgrave 2017). Ongoing Projects Art in Transit: The Cultural Politics of Mobility In recent years, mass transit authorities around the world have been actively integrating arts and cultural programming into the modernization, expansion, and redevelopment of their urban rail networks. The purpose of this SSHRC-supported research project is to critically analyze the close association between art and infrastructure investment in comparative perspective. It asks: What accounts for the proliferation of transit art today? Where, how, and why is this occurring? And with what effects? Through analyzing the cultural industries of transportation, I aim to show how artists, architects, design professionals, engineers, and ordinary commuters develop tools to represent, imagine, and organize different kinds of urban-regional society. Broadly, the research engages conversations about the politics of infrastructure, transit-oriented development, urban cultural studies, and public art. Commotion Transit networks are objects of intense political contestation and are key terrains of struggle in cities around the world. In this project, I consider transit as a critical infrastructure of oppression and resistance and as a key platform for political and social change. The objective of the project is to examine the emergences and effects of transit-oriented mobilization in several places. Why do mass transit systems feature so prominently in contentious urban and suburban politics? What do struggles over, on and about transit tell us about the pursuit of more just, sustainable, democratic, and care-ful urban futures? Selected NOIR Relevant Publications Enright, T. forthcoming. “Connecting the City Connecting the World: Becoming Global through Transit-led Urbanization in London and Toronto,” in Critical Dialogues of Urban Governance, Development and Activism: London and Toronto, Susan Moore, Nicola Livingstone, Susannah Bunce and Alan Walks (Eds.) London: UCL Press Enright, T. 2019. “Transit Justice as Spatial Justice: Learning from Activists.” Mobilities. DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2019.1607156 Enright, T. 2018. “Mobile Futures: Urban Revitalisation and the Aesthetics of Transportation” in Handbook on Spaces of Urban Politics, edited by Andy Jonas et al., London: Routledge, 577-588 Enright, T. 2017. “The Political Topology of Urban Uprisings,” Urban Geography. 38:4, 557-577. Enright, T. 2015. “Transportation and the Coordination of the Competitive Parisian Metropolis.” Flux. No 101/102: 57-68.
  • LEILA HARRIS (University of British Columbia)
    Leila M. Harris Professor at IRES Institute on Resources Environment and Sustainability and with the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Harris’s work examines social, cultural, political-economic, institutional and equity dimensions of environmental and resource issues, particularly issues related to water politics, infrastructures, and governance. Ongoing projects Beyond Access: Comparative Analysis of Non-material Dimensions of Water Insecurities This research project considers non-material dimensions of water insecurity. As such, it aims to move ‘beyond the pipe’ to consider the affective, lived, and political dimensions of uneven water infrastructures, access, and conditions. Work is proceeding in South Africa, Canada, Brazil, together with project partners Wendy Jepson and Dacotah Splichalova, and in the context of other work on water insecurity being undertaken by the HWISE network on water insecurity experiences. Methodologically the work seeks to extend focus on and extend narrative, visual, performance theater, and other arts based methods for water insecurity studies to advanced understandings of ways that water insecurity impinges on subjectivities, socio-political engagement and other key features of water governance. This project builds on earlier conceptual work related to the socio-political dimensions of dam building and water diversion in the context of the GAP project in Turkey. Comparative Water Governance in Urban Sites in Africa This multi-sited project considers lived experiences of water access and governance, including politics related to uneven water access, conditions, and infrastructures, with focus on informal and underserved settlements in Accra Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa. Among other themes this work has focused on participatory engagement, politics of inequality related to uneven water and sanitation infrastructures, shifting state-society relations, gender, as well as politics related to the implementation of the human right to water. First Nations and the shifting water governance landscape of British Columbia This research explores key considerations regarding First Nations and water governance in the context of British Columbia, Canada, as well as issues of interest regarding the situation of drinking water quality for Indigenous communities in Canada. Working on these issues in the context of water justice begins first with acknowledgment of First Nations’ inherent right to govern their water resources in accordance with cultural preferences and practices, and also that these issues cannot be abstracted from broader governance challenges important for these communities. This project has considered issues of trust , the shifting water governance landscape in British Columbia, histories of water licensing, and similar issues. NOIR-related publications Harris, L. M. (2020) Assessing States and Evaluating Publics: Perspectives on water service delivery and evolving state-society relations in Accra, Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa, Environment and Planning C K. McFarlane, L. Harris (2018) Small systems, big challenges: Review of small drinking water system governance Environmental Reviews https://doi.org/10.1139/er-2018-0033 Harris, L., D. Kleiber, S. Yaylaci, L. Rodina, J. Goldin (2018). Water Materialities and Participatory Governance: Implications of water quality and access for participatory engagement in Accra Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa. Society and Natural Resources. 31, 1: 89-105 Rodina, L. and L. Harris, (2016) Water Services, Lived Citizenship and Notions of the State in Marginalized Urban Spaces: The case of Khayletisha South Africa. Water Alternatives 9 (2): 336-355.’ Morales, M., L. Harris, and G. Öberg (2014) Citizenshit: The right to flush and the urban sanitation imaginary. Environment and Planning A. 46 (12): 2816-2833. Harris, L. (2012) State as Socio-Natural Effect: Variable and emergent geographies of the state in southeastern Turkey. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 32(1): 25-39. Harris, L. (2006) Irrigation, Gender, and Social Geographies of the Changing Waterscape in Southeastern Anatolia. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 24 (2): 187–213 Other pubs of interest: Hommes, L., Boelens, R., Harris, L.M. and Gert Jan Veldwisch. (2019). Rural–urban water struggles: urbanizing hydrosocial territories and evolving connections, discourses and identities. Water International 44(2): 81-94. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2019.1583311 Torio, P.C., Harris, L.M. and Leonora C. Angeles. (2019). The rural–urban equity nexus of Metro Manila’s water system. Water International 44(2): 115-128. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2019.1560559
  • YUJIA HE (University of Kentucky)
    Assistant Professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, University of Kentucky
  • JOHN HARRISON (Loughborough University)
    John Harrison is Reader in Human Geography at Loughborough University, UK, and Associate Director of the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) research network. He is an urban-regional geographer interested in how regions are constructed and mobilised politically. His recent work explores megaregions and the link between this regional imaginary and infrastructure alliances, logistics, supply chain expansion and high speed rail. He is editor of the Urban and Regional Horizons section of Regional Studies. Ongoing projects Megaregions and infrastructural regionalism This research project examines the logic connecting megaregions (or multi-city regionalism) with the formation of new infrastructure alliances, especially around high speed rail and supply chain expansion. Empirically the focus for this research has been an infrastructure alliance in North West England called Atlantic Gateway. Launched in 2008, Atlantic Gateway is an infrastructure alliance bringing together cities (Liverpool and Manchester) and firms (in property development, logistics) who are otherwise direct competitors. The project is revealing the structuring principle and logic for growth oriented regionalism on the megaregion scale, examining the motivations for firms engaging in business-orchestrated regionalism, and highlighting new dynamics in growth oriented regionalism. Beyond this case, work is exploring megaregion formation in China and globally, revealing how megaregions are often narrowly constructed around highly politicised infrastructure developments concerned with high speed rail, transport and logistics, and supply chain expansion. NOIR-relevant publications Harrison J (2020) Seeing like a business: rethinking the role of business in regional development, planning and governance. Territory, Politics, Governance Harrison J and Gu H (2020) Planning megaregional futures: spatial imaginaries and megaregion formation in China. Regional Studies Harrison J and Hoyler M (2015) Megaregions: Globalization’s New Urban Form? Edward Elgar.
  • MANISHA JAIN (Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development
    Manisha Jain is a senior researcher (PostDoc) at the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development in Dresden, Germany. She is a spatial planner and analyst, and her work focuses on theoretical and empirical analysis of metropolitan and regional spatial structure, modelling effects of infrastructure on aggravation of spatial disparities, and analysis of linkages between urban and rural areas. Her research is published in Cities, Landscape and Urban Planning, Habitat International, Transport Policy, Journal of Transport Geography NOIR-relevant projects INdia-INfra- Development of a methodological framework for linking infrastructure provision with settlement system in Indian urban regions (Duration: 2017-2020, Project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), GZ: JA 2567/2-1, as Applicant and Principal Investigator)' ReSouth - Resource efficiency of settlement structure in global SOUTH (Duration: 2015-2017; 2020-2021, IOER postdoc-project, Principal Investigator) Selected NOIR-relevant publications Jain, M. & Korzhenevych, A. (Under Review). Discerning institutional and spatial restructuring under emergent neoliberal projects in India. Environment and Planning-A Jain, M. & Jehling, M. (2020 a). Urban cycle models revisited: Insights for regional development in India. Cities, 107 (2020) 102923 Jain, M. & Jehling, M. (2020 b). Analysing transport corridor policies: An integrative approach to reduce spatial and social disparities in India. Journal of Transport Geography, 86 (2020) 102781 Jain, M., & Korzhenevych, A. (2020). Urbanisation as the rise of census towns in India: An outcome of traditional master planning? Cities, 99 (2020) 102627 Jain, M. & Hecht, R. (2019). Spatial assessment of commuting patterns in India’s National Capital Region. Built Environment, 45 (4):464-479 Jain, M., & Korzhenevych, A. (2019 a). Change in urban system in India: Urban hierarchy revisited. Urban and Landscape Planning, 190 (2019) 103588: 1-10 Jain, M., Korzhenevych, A., & Sridharan, N. (2019). Determinants of growth in non-municipal areas of Delhi: Rural-urban dichotomy revisited. Journal of Housing & Built Environment Jain, M., Korzhenevych, A., & Pallagst, K. (2019). Evaluation of the growth management strategy in the National Capital Region of India. Land Use Policy, 81: 1-12 Jain, M., & Korzhenevych, A. (2019 b). Counter-urbanization as the growth of small towns: Is the Capital Region of India prepared? TESG, Journal of Social and Economic Geography, 110 (2): 156-172
  • ANDY JONAS (University of Hull)
    Andy’s research examines the governance of urban and regional development, with a specific focus on the geopolitics of city-regions and the financing and provision of regional transportation infrastructure. He is also interested in the ways in which climate change and the low carbon economy is transforming the institutional and governance landscape of city-regions in Europe and the USA. Andy currently holds a Chair in Human Geography at the University of Hull and has also taught at the University of California, Riverside, and Clark University in the USA. In 2012, he was Marsico Visiting Fellow at the University of Denver and holds posts as Docent Visiting Professor of Urban and Regional Development at the University of Oulu in Finland and Adjunct Professor of Geography at Simon Fraser University in Canada. He serves on the editorial boards of Urban Geography, Territory Politics and Governance and Geography Compass. He has guest edited theme issues of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Environment and Planning A and Social Science Quarterly. NOIR-relevant publications Books Moisio, Sami, N. Koch, A.E.G. Jonas, C. Lizotte & J. Luukkonen (Eds.), (2020) Handbook on Changing Geographies of the State: New Spaces of Geopolitics. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Ward, Kevin, A.E.G. Jonas, B. Miller and D. Wilson (Eds) (2018) Handbook on Spaces of Urban Politics. London: Routledge. Jonas, Andrew E.G., E. McCann and M. Thomas (2015) Urban Geography: A Critical Introduction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Jonas, Andrew E.G. and A. Wood (Eds) (2012) Territory, The State and Urban Politics. Farnham: Ashgate. Fuller, Duncan, A.E.G. Jonas and R. Lee (Eds) (2012) Interrogating Alterity: Alternative Economic and Political Spaces. Farnham: Ashgate. Jonas, Andrew E.G. and D. Wilson (Eds) (1999) The Urban Growth Machine: Critical Perspectives Two Decades Later. New York: State University of New York Press. Journal articles and book chapters Kythreotis, A., Jonas, A.E.G., and Howarth, C. (2020). ‘Locating climate adaptation in urban and regional studies’. Regional Studies, 54(4), 576–588. Li, Y. and Jonas, A.E.G. (2019). ‘City-regionalism as countervailing geopolitical processes: The evolution and dynamics of Yangtze River Delta region, China’. Political Geography, 73, 70–81. Jonas, A.E.G. and Moisio, S. (2018) ‘City regionalism as geopolitical processes’. Progress in Human Geography, 42(3), 350–370. Moisio, S. and Jonas, A.E.G. (2018), ‘City-regions and city-regionalism’, in J. Harrison, M. Jones and G. MacLeod (eds), Handbook of Regions and Territories, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 285–297. Hall, S. and Jonas, A.E.G. (2014) ‘Urban fiscal austerity, infrastructure provision and the struggle for regional transit in ‘Motor City’’ Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 7(1), 189-206. Jonas, A.E.G., Goetz, A.R. and Battarcharjee, S. (2014) ‘City-regionalism and the politics of collective provision: regional transportation infrastructure in Denver, USA’ Urban Studies Jonas, A.E.G. (2013) ‘Alternative regionalism’. Progress in Human Geography 37:6, 822-828. Jonas, A.E.G. (2013) ‘City-regionalism as a contingent “geopolitics of capitalism’’’. Geopolitics 18:2, 284-298 While, A.,Gibbs, D., Jonas, A.E.G. (2013) ‘The competition state, city-regions, and the territorial politics of growth facilitation’. Environment and Planning A, 45, 10, 2379–2398. Jonas, A. E.G. (2012) ‘City-regionalism: questions of distribution and politics’. Progress in Human Geography 36, 822-829. Jonas, Andrew E.G. (2011), ‘Region and place: regionalism in question’. Progress in Human Geography 36, 263-272. Jonas, A.E.G., While, A. and Gibbs, D. (2010), ‘Managing infrastructural and service demands in new economic spaces: the new territorial politics of collective provision’. Regional Studies, 44:2, 183-200.
  • LORAINE KENNEDY (Centre for South Asian Studies, École des Hautes Études)"
    Loraine Kennedy is CNRS Research Director at the Centre for South Asian Studies (CEIAS) at the École des Hautes Études (EHESS) in Paris. Her research focuses on contemporary India and engages with infrastructure and regionalism through three main areas: state spatial rescaling, the politics of urban development and metropolitan governance. Her most recent books are The Politics of Economic Restructuring in India. Economic Governance and State Spatial Rescaling (Routledge, 2014) and two co-edited volumes Power, Policy, and Protest: The Politics of India’s Special Economic Zones (Oxford University Press, 2014) and Greenfield Urban Development in India (Orient Blackswan, forthcoming). Selected NOIR Relevant Publications Kennedy, L. (2020) Multi-scalar dynamics driving India’s urban mega projects. Speculative urbanisation and the IT Corridor in Chennai. In H. B. Shin & D.-W. Gimm (Eds.), The Political Economy of Mega Projects in Asia: Globalization and Urban Transformation. Routledge, Abington, forthcoming. Kennedy, L. (2020) Actors and shifting scales of urban governance in India. In D. Labbé and A. Sorensen (Eds.), International Handbook on Megacities and Megacity Regions. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA, USA, pp. 101-118. Kennedy, L., (2020) The Politics of Land Acquisition in Haryana: Managing Dominant Caste Interests in the Name of Development. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 1-18, published online https://doi.org/10.1080/00472336.2019.1651885 Sood, A. and Kennedy, L., (2020) Neoliberal exception to liberal democracy? Entrepreneurial governance in India, Territory, Politics, Governance, 8:1, 23-42. Kennedy, L., and Sood, A. (2019). Outsourced urban governance as a state rescaling strategy in Hyderabad, India. Cities, 85, 130-139. Nelles, J., Gross, J. S. and Kennedy, L. (2018) The role of governance networks in building metropolitan scale. Territory, Politics, Governance, 6(2), 159-181. Bon, B. and Kennedy, L. (2018) Contrasting the Spatial and Political Dimensions of Rescaling in Metropolitan Delhi. In J. S. Gross, E. Gualini, and L. Ye (Eds.), Constructing Metropolitan Space: Actors, Policies and Processes of Rescaling in World Metropolises. Routledge, Abington, pp. 65-87. Kennedy, L. (Ed.) (2017) State Restructuring and Emerging Patterns of Subnational Policy- Making and Governance in China and India, special issue Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 35(1): 6-129. Kennedy, L. and Sood, A. (Eds.) (2016) Greenfield Development as Tabula Rasa. Rescaling, Speculation and Governance on India’s Urban Frontier, special issue Economic and Political Weekly (Review of Urban Affairs), 51(17): 41-109. Kennedy, L. (Ed.) (2015) Megaprojects, Settlement Dynamics and the Sustainability Challenge in Metropolitan Cities, special issue Habitat international, 45(3):163-230.
  • JENNY McARTHUR (University College London)
    Jenny is a lecturer at the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy at University College London. Her research focuses on infrastructure governance and urban policy, including planning, financing, and delivery of urban infrastructure systems. Jenny has worked on research projects in a wide range of urban contexts, including cities the United Kingdom, Portugal, Hungary, Romania, Sweden, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Australia and New Zealand. Jenny’s NOIR-focused research seeks to understand how the global agenda to mobilise private finance bridge the infrastructure ‘financing gap’ is articulated through local and regional politics.
  • COLIN McFARLANE (Durham University)
    Colin McFarlane is a Professor of Urban Geography at Durham University, UK. His work focusses on how cities are known, lived and politicised. His current work focusses on the experience and perception of high densities (see for example https://www.dur.ac.uk/dencity/, funded through European Research Council), and his forthcoming book is City Fragments: Following Urban Worlds (2021, University of California). NOIR-relevant publications McFarlane, C. The Urbanization of the Sanitation Crisis: Placing Waste in the City. Development and Change. 2019;50:239-1262. McFarlane, C. Fragment Urbanism: Politics on the Margins of the City. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 2018;36:1007-1025. McFarlane, C., Silver, J. & Truelove, Y. Cities within Cities: Intra-Urban Comparison of Infrastructure in Mumbai, Delhi and Cape Town. Urban Geography. 2017;38:1393-1417. McFarlane, C. & Silver, J. The Poolitical City: “Seeing Sanitation” and Making the Urban Political in Cape Town. Antipode. 2017;49:125-148. Lancione, M. & McFarlane, C. Life at the urban margins: sanitation infra-making and the potential of experimental comparison. Environment and Planning A. 2016;48:2402-2421
  • TIMOTHY MOSS (Humboldt University)
    Timothy Moss is a Senior Researcher at the Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys) at the Humboldt University of Berlin, where he leads the research group Urban Infrastructures and Human-Environment Relations. Tim’s research is distinctive for connecting historical studies of infrastructure with contemporary debates on sociotechnical and urban transitions. For more details: https://www.iri-thesys.org/people/moss Ongoing Projects Powering Divided Cities: Urban Energy Systems between Separation and Cooperation This three-year research project, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in 2020, is led by Timothy Moss at IRI THESys in cooperation with Prof. Itay Fischhendler of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. The project studies past and present cases of politically divided cities to reveal how energy infrastructures – understood as socio-technical configurations – can reinforce separation or promote cooperation in contested urban contexts. Three research objectives are pursued. First, the project demonstrates how political conflict has manifested itself in the structures and processes involved in producing, providing and using electricity and gas in three iconic divided cities: Berlin, Jerusalem and Nicosia. Second, it analyses how energy infrastructures have been enrolled in the urban resilience strategies of these cities since division, whether to increase isolationist self-dependence or cooperative inter-dependence. Third, it generates from the case comparison, both within and between the cities studied, knowledge on the relationship between geopolitical conflict and energy security in urban contexts as a contribution to theory-building at the interface of urban studies, energy studies and peace studies. Invisible Berlin: Urban Infrastructure between Dictatorship and Democracy This book project, funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation and completed in 2019, interpreted Berlin’s twentieth-century history afresh through the lens of its infrastructure systems. Tim’s research revealed how the policies, plans and practices surrounding the design, provision and use of the city’s energy and water/wastewater services changed in response to the regime diversity, geo-political interventions and socio-economic volatility which has pitted Berlin’s recent history and what this can tell us, on a more fundamental level, about the relationship between a city and its infrastructure. The project resulted in a book published by MIT Press in 2020 (see below). Empirically, this book traces the trajectory of Berlin’s infrastructures across the 100 years covered, noting what components changed – and what ones proved obdurate – at which times and why. It also reflects on the differences and similarities between the five sectors studied (electricity, gas, district heating, water and sanitation) and dimensions of sectoral connectivity and interdependence revealed by the analysis. Conceptually, the book draws out the implications of the findings for a) the relationship between obduracy and transformation to urban infrastructures and b) the relationship between a city and its infrastructure in the context of international and national politics. It concludes by mapping out an agenda for future research on urban infrastructures from historical and contemporary perspectives. <h5 class="font_5"> </h5> Relevant publications Moss, T. (in press): Remaking Berlin. A History of the City through Infrastructure, 1920-2020. MIT Press, Cambridge MA https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/remaking-berlin Moss, T.; Hüesker, F. (2019): Politicised nexus thinking in practice: Integrating urban wastewater utilities into regional energy markets. Urban Studies, 56(11), pp.2225-2241. García Soler, N.; Moss, T.; Papasozomenou, O. (2018): Rain and the city: Pathways to mainstreaming rainwater harvesting in Berlin. Geoforum 89, pp.96-106. Moss, T.; Naumann, M.; Krause, K. (2017): Turning wastewater into energy: challenges of reconfiguring regional infrastructures in the Berlin–Brandenburg region. Local Environment 22(3), pp.269-285. Moss, T. (2016): Discarded surrogates, modified traditions, welcome complements: The chequered careers of alternative technologies in Berlin’s infrastructure systems. Social Studies of Science 46(4), pp.559-582. Moss, T. (2016): Conserving Water and Preserving Infrastructures between Dictatorship and Democracy in Berlin. Water Alternatives 9(2), pp.250-271. Obertreis, J.; Moss, T.; Mollinga, P.; Bichsel, C. (2016): Water, Infrastructure and Political Rule: Introduction to the Special Issue. Water Alternatives 9(2), pp.168-181. Moss, T. (2014): Socio-technical change and the politics of urban infrastructure: Managing energy in Berlin between dictatorship and democracy, Urban Studies, 51(7), pp.1432-1448 Guy, S.; Marvin, S.; Medd, W.; Moss, T. (eds.) (2011): Shaping Urban Infrastructures. Intermediaries and the Governance of Socio-technical Networks. Earthscan, London/Washington, DC. Moss, T. (2009): Intermediaries and the governance of sociotechnical networks, Environment and Planning A, 41(6), 1480-1495. Moss, T. (2008): ‘Cold spots’ of Urban Infrastructure: ‘Shrinking’ Processes in Eastern Germany and the Modern Infrastructural Ideal, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 32(2), 436-451. Guy, S.; Marvin, S.; Moss, T. (eds.) (2001): Urban Infrastructure in Transition. Networks, Buildings, Plans. Earthscan, London.
  • RAUL PACHECO-VEGA (FLACSO)
    Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega is an Associate Professor in the Methods Lab of the Latin American Faculty for Social Sciences (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, FLACSO) Sede Mexico. He is a specialist in comparative public policy and focuses on North American environmental politics, primarily sanitation and water governance, solid waste management, neoinstitutional theory, transnational environmental social movements and experimental methods in public policy. Dr. Pacheco-Vega’s current research programme focuses on the spatial, political and human dimensions of public service delivery from a comparative perspective. He has been Editor for the Americas of the International Journal of Qualitative Methods, and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences (JESS), Assistant Editor for Policy Design and Practice. He also sits on the editorial board of Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, Water International, Global Environmental Politics, Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, Regions and Cohesion, International Studies Review, Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, and Politics, Groups & Identities. NOIR-relevant projects The Spatial, Political and Human Dimensions of Public Service Delivery. Infrastructure and Water Insecurity. Methodological Innovations in the Study of Infrastructure. Selected publications Jose Arturo Gleason Espindola, Cesar Augusto Casiano Flores, Raul Pacheco-Vega, & Margarita Rosa Pacheco Montes (Eds). International Rainwater Catchment Systems Experiences: Towards Water Security. The International Water Association. 2020. “Governing Urban Water Conflict Through Watershed Councils? A Public Policy Analysis Approach and Critique”. Water 2020, 12(7), 1849; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12071849 (available online at: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/7/1849) "(Re)theorizing the Politics of Bottled Water: Water Insecurity in the Context of Weak Regulatory Regimes" Water, 11(4):658, 2019. https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/11/4/658 “Human Right to Water and Bottled Water Consumption: Governing at the Intersection of Water Justice, Rights, and Ethics”. In: Farhana Sultana and Alex Loftus, Eds. “Water Politics. Governance, Rights and Justice” London, Routledge. Pp. 113-128, 2020. “Evolutionary Institutional Change and Performance in Polycentric Governance”, with Andreas Thiel and Elizabeth Baldwin. In: Thiel, Andreas; Blomquist, William A. and Garrick, Dustin E. “Governing Complexity: Analyzing and Applying Polycentricity”. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 91-110, 2019. “Policy Styles in Mexico: Still Muddling Through Centralized Bureaucracy, not yet Through the Democratic Transition” In: Howlett, Michael and Tosun, Jale, Eds. (2019) “Policy Styles and Policy-Making: Exploring the Linkages” Routledge. Pp. 89-112. “Urban Wastewater Governance in Latin America. Panorama and Reflections for a Research Agenda” In Aguilar-Barajas, Ismael, Mahlknecht, Jurgen, Kaledin, Jonathan, Kellén, Marianne, Mejía-Betancourt, Abel (Eds.) Water and Cities: Challenges for Latin America London, EarthScan/Routledge/Taylor and Francis. Pp. 102-108. 2015.
  • BRIAN ROSA (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
    Brian is an urban geographer living in Barcelona, Spain, where he is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow in GeoHumanities at the Department of Humanities, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. He was previously Assistant Professor of Urban Studies and Geography at the City University of New York. He holds an MRP in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University and a PhD in Human Geography from The University of Manchester. He co-edited (with Christoph Lindner) Deconstructing the High Line: Postindustrial Urbanism and the Rise of the Elevated Park (Rutgers University Press, 2016) and has presented internationally on the phenomenon of the global "high line effect" from a critical perspective. He has recently written about the High Line and its relation to industrial heritage and green gentrification for the newsletter of The International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage (TICCIH). His personal web page is http://brianrosa.net. Brian's NOIR-focused interests regard the spaces and landscapes of historic railway infrastructures in cities and the relationship between urban infrastructures and deindustrialization more broadly. He is currently working on two articles that look at urban railway viaducts in Britain to understand the unfolding political economic dynamics and scalar politics of gentrification, heritage, and urban restructuring. The first looks at commercial gentrification within the arches beneath urban railway viaducts since the 1970s, with an emphasis on the recent sale of the railway's publicly-owned property estate for £1.6 billion, making a consortium of private equity firms the largest landlord of small and medium enterprises in Britain. It considers the functional and economic relationships between intercity railway infrastructure and the activities that occur at the street level, in the city below. This article is being prepared for a forthcoming special issue on displacements for Annals of the American Association of Geographers. The second looks at the complexities of the more recent recognition of urban transport infrastructure as protected elements of the built heritage. It considers changing perceptions of the contemporary built environment, and the ways that the industrial heritage raises new questions about the intersecting cultural, economic, and use values of historic infrastructures. The controversial case of the construction of the Ordsall Chord viaduct through the Castlefield Conservation area in Manchester-the "Stonehenge of railway heritage"- illustrates the tensions, complications, and contradictions of treating railway infrastructure as heritage. I emphasize how agendas surrounding the cultural and landscape value of infrastructure may be overridden by technical—but especially economic—concerns, even in the most paradigmatic of cases. Rosa, Brian (2020). “Green Gentrification, Historic Preservation, and New York’s High Line.” TICCIH Bulletin (The International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage), Issue 88. Lindner, Christoph and Brian Rosa, eds. (2017). Deconstructing the High Line: Postindustrial Urbanism and the Rise of the Elevated Park. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press).
  • STABEK ROY (Tripura University)
    Stabak Roy works as a Doctoral Researcher at Regional Planning and Urban & Rural Development (RPURD) Lab., Department of Geography and Disaster Management, Tripura University. He does research on Railway Geography, Railway Infrastructure Planning and Management, Transport Planning and Tourism. NOIR-relevant publications Stabak Roy,Tapan Barman,Saptarshi Mitra (2019) Passengers’ Perception and Persuasion on Railway Transport System of Tripura Indian Journal of Landscape Systems and Ecological Study, 42:1, 115-129 (ISSN 0971-4170) Stabak Roy, Souritra Bajpayee, Saptarshi Mitra. (2019) Infrastructural Intervention and Development of Railway Transport System: Evidence from Agartala-Sabroom Section, Tripura, India. Indian Journal of Regional Science, 51:2, 117-133 (ISSN 0046-9017) Saptarshi Mitra*, Amit Bera, Stabak Roy, Sunil Kumar DeA. (2018) Geomorphological investigation of Gurpisey Landslide in Eastern Himalayas, Namchi, South Sikkim Malaysian Journal of Tropical Geography, 2018, 44 (1 & 2), 1-16. (ISSN 0127-1474). Saptarshi Mitra, Debasish Debbarma, Abhijit Santra, Stabak Roy (2018) Road Network System in Agartala Municipal Corporation: A Geographical Analysis. Indian Journal of Regional Science, 2018, Special Volume, 66-77 (ISSN 0046-9017) Debasish Debbarma, Stabak Roy, Abhijit SantraSaptarshi Mitra* (2018) A Spatial Analysis of Population Distribution, Density and Growth in Agartala City. Asian Journal of Spatial Science, 2018, 6:1, 24-36 (ISSN 2347-7636).
  • JONATHAN RUTHERFORD (Ecole des Ponts ParisTech and Université Paris Est)
    Jonathan Rutherford is a senior researcher at LATTS (Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Sociétés), Ecole des Ponts ParisTech and Université Paris Est, France. His work focuses on urban infrastructures and the politics of urban socio-technical change. Ongoing and recent projects include research on controlled environments with Simon Marvin (UI, Sheffield), smart and digital energy in the city, and urban energy transitions. Selected NOIR-relevant publications Rutherford, J. (2020) Redeploying Urban Infrastructure: The Politics of Urban Socio-Technical Futures. London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030178864 Marvin, S. and Rutherford, J. (2018) ‘Controlled environments: an urban research agenda on microclimatic enclosure’, Urban Studies 55(6), pp. 1143-1162. Coutard, O. and Rutherford, J. (eds.) (2016) Beyond the Networked City: Infrastructure Reconfigurations and Urban Change in the North and South. Abingdon: Routledge. Rutherford, J. and Jaglin, S. (2015) ‘Introduction – Urban energy governance: local actions, capacities and politics’, Energy Policy 78, pp. 173-178. Rutherford, J. and Coutard, O. (2014) ‘Urban energy transitions: places, processes and politics of socio-technical change’, Urban Studies 51(7), pp. 1353-1377. Rutherford, J. (2014) ‘The vicissitudes of energy-climate policy in Stockholm: politics, materiality and transition’, Urban Studies 51(7), pp. 1449-1470.
  • SETH SCHINDLER (University of Manchester)
    Seth Schindler is an urban geographer whose research focuses on contemporary development policy’s resurrection of high-modernist spatial planning and its relationship with deindustrialization. After completing his PhD at Clark University he coordinated the Global Studies Programme at Humboldt University of Berlin. He is currently Senior Lecturer of Urban Development and Transformation at the University of Manchester’s Global Development Institute. Featured project A World of Rust Belts?: Deindustrialisation and its Impacts in Cities in the Global South The primary imperative of contemporary development policy is to ‘get the territory right,’ and integrate hitherto isolated regions in to global value chains. To this end connectivity-oriented infrastructure projects link resource and agribusiness frontiers with dedicated zones of value addition via logistics cities. This emphasis on enhanced connectivity is a response to widespread deindustrialization, which, contrary to popular assumptions, has been more severe in much of the Global South than in the post-war industrial heartlands of the OECD. This project examines how deindustrialization impacted Dar es Salaam, Buenos Aires and Kanpur. Selected NOIR-related publications Liu, Z., Schindler S. and Liu, W. (2020) Demystifying Chinese overseas investment in infrastructure: Port development, the Belt and Road Initiative and regional development. Journal of Transport Geography, 87: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2020.102812 Schindler, S. and Kanai, J.M. (2019) Getting the territory right: infrastructure-led development and the re-emergence of spatial planning strategies. Regional Studies, in press: https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2019.1661984 Kanai, J.M. and Schindler, S. (2019) Peri-urban promises of connectivity: Linking project-led polycentrism to the infrastructure scramble. Environment and Planning A 51(2): 302-322. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X18763370 Schindler, S. (2018) The Coming Infrastructure Arms Race between the U.S. and China. Global Policy Journal: https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/28/09/2018/coming-infrastructure-arms-race-between-us-and-china
  • KARSTEN ZIMMERMAN (TU Dortmund)
    Since 2012 Karsten Zimmermann has been Professor at the Faculty of Spatial Planning at Technical University of Dortmund where he holds the chair for European Planning Cultures. He is educated as a political scientist and dedicated most of his academic work to the study of cities and regions. From 2012 to 2016 he was the president of the European Urban Research Association EURA, from 2013 – 2017 he was country representative for Germany at AESOP council. His list of publications includes numerous articles and books on metropolitan governance, European urban policy, knowledge and planning and local climate policies. Current research projects focus on comparative metropolitan governance and spatial planning in Germany, Italy and France, innovation in local mobility policies in German cities, national urban policies and regional governance of water infrastructures. NOIR-relevant publications Zimmermann, Karsten; Fedeli, Valeria (eds.) (2020) The modern guide to national urban policies in Europe. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham. Zimmermann, Karsten; Galland, Daniel; Harrison, John (eds.) (2020): Metropolitan Regions, Planning and Governance. Cham: Springer International Publishing; Imprint Springer. Zimmermann, Karsten (2018): Politicising the Regional Scale? The Politics of Metropolitan Governance in Germany, Canada and Brazil, In: Eraydin, Ayda; Frey, Klaus (eds.): Politics and Conflict in Governance and Planning. Theory and Practice. Milton: Routledge. 151-168. Dembski, Sebastian; Sykes, Olivier; Couch, Chris; Desjardins, Xavier; Evers, David; Osterhage, Frank; Siedentop, Stefan; Zimmermann, Karsten (2019): Reurbanisation and suburbia in Northwest Europe: A comparative perspective on spatial trends and policy approaches. In: Progress in Planning (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305900619300637). Zimmermann, Karsten (2017): Re-Scaling of Metropolitan Governance in Germany. In: Raumforschung und Raumordnung - Spatial Research and Planning 75/3, 253–263 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13147-017-0480-5).
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