Urban Governance and Economics

Research in this strand explores the institutional, governance and planning aspects of urban environments and the ways in which these shape the economy concerned with understanding the governance strategies for effecting and delivering sustainable and just change to urban communities. Current themes include:

  • Governance of Electric Urbanism in Africa: this research explores the challenges of governing electricity services in cities in Sub-Saharan Africa (Principal Researcher: Idalina Baptista)
  • Urban Governance in Conflict and Crisis: this research focuses on strategies to deal with contention, conflict and crisis in urban politics and governance involving a variety of urban problems (Principal Researcher: Idalina Baptista)
  • Political Economy of Urban Infrastructure Investments: this work aims to develop an analytical framework of urban infrastructure projects by integrating political economy analysis into appraisal and evaluation practices (Principal Researcher: Nihan Akyelken)
  • Urban Spaces of Work, Accessibility and Inequality: work within this theme investigates the implications of mobility constraints for access to economic activities and its wider implications for inequality in cities in Turkey (Principal Researcher: Nihan Akyelken)
  • Cities, Globalisation and Governance of Mobility of Goods: this research strand focuses on understanding the mobility implications of the globalisation of production and consumption practices for European cities (Principal Researcher: Nihan Akyelken)
  • Informality, development and urban governance: the role of social innovation and informal forms of governance and leadership in low-income neighbourhoods (Principal Researcher: David Howard)