Urban StudiesPub Date : 2026-10-09DOI: 10.1177/00420980261490802
Chiara Bergonzini
{"title":"Finding a ‘place’ in public food matters: Gendered urban food initiatives shaping women’s right to the city","authors":"Chiara Bergonzini","doi":"10.1177/00420980261490802","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261490802","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates the potential of urban food initiatives in providing an opportunity for the advancement of women’s right to the city. It does so by retracing the historically rooted patriarchal division of care labour, which includes the so-called ‘foodwork’, that has long confined women to peripheries and private spaces by tying their ‘place’ in cities and societies to private care practices. Yet, in recent years food matters have ‘gone public’ and become recognised as urban issues that should be tackled collectively in a public way. Through interviews with three alternative food networks in Milan, this article shows that the feminisation of care and foodwork has not been disrupted when these matters have become considered as public and collective urban issues. Still, the persistence of these gendered roles in some cases provides women with a chance to advance their right to the city, by facilitating appropriation of urban space and participation in decision-making through urban food initiatives. The article discusses the tensions between the opportunity to ‘find a place’ in public food matters for women facing social fragility and the persistence of patriarchal understandings of gender roles that grant such place.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149130407","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Urban StudiesPub Date : 2026-10-09DOI: 10.1177/00420980261490057
Antoine Langeard, Adéla Kola, Evrim Gökç, Emma Milot, Valentine Erne-Heintz, Zakaria N. Doueiri, Abby C. King
{"title":"ParAge: A pilot study using participatory methods to assess outdoor environmental fall risks in older adults","authors":"Antoine Langeard, Adéla Kola, Evrim Gökç, Emma Milot, Valentine Erne-Heintz, Zakaria N. Doueiri, Abby C. King","doi":"10.1177/00420980261490057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261490057","url":null,"abstract":"Population aging and urbanization have made age-friendly urban design a global priority. While the WHO’s Age-Friendly Cities and Communities framework identifies outdoor spaces as a critical domain, fall prevention remains under-addressed. Falls are a leading cause of injury and loss of autonomy, with approximately 73% of outdoor falls triggered by modifiable environmental factors. This study developed and evaluated a participatory, geolocated method based on the <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">Our Voice</jats:italic> citizen science framework to identify environmental fall risks and generate consensus-based solutions. Twenty-eight participants engaged in a workshop, using a mobile app to record 314 geotagged environmental features during diagnostic walks. These data were then reviewed in facilitated sessions where participants co-analyzed findings and rated potential solutions. The research specifically examined whether outputs diverged based on participant profiles, such as age, fall history, or fear of falling. Results highlighted seven categories of risk factors, most frequently involving poor surface conditions, lack of maintenance, and obstacles. Notably, participants with a history of falls or a greater fear of falling reported different risks, suggesting varied perceptions of the urban environment. However, no significant differences were observed in proposed solutions, such as infrastructure maintenance and improved signage, indicating a strong consensus on feasible interventions. Qualitative feedback confirmed the method’s acceptability and feasibility, praising its inclusive, field-based nature. This participatory approach complements existing walkability indices by capturing overlooked hazards. By integrating diverse lived experiences into environmental assessments, this method can contribute to safer pedestrian mobility and the development of truly inclusive cities for all ages.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"39 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149130432","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Urban StudiesPub Date : 2026-10-09DOI: 10.1177/00420980261487308
Minju Kim, Jung-Eun Lee, Seul Lee, Kang-Bok Lee, Yunmi Park
{"title":"Naming an industry as heritage: Industrial retention and commercial rents in Seongsu, South Korea","authors":"Minju Kim, Jung-Eun Lee, Seul Lee, Kang-Bok Lee, Yunmi Park","doi":"10.1177/00420980261487308","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261487308","url":null,"abstract":"In industrial neighborhoods that survive into a city’s expansion phase, a weakened production base and a rising land market are present at the same time. Regeneration plans for such places increasingly name that base as local heritage and commit to retaining it, and evidence on what those commitments deliver, and to whom, remains limited. This study investigates an urban regeneration project in the Seongsu of Seoul, South Korea, which identified the neighborhood’s existing leather and shoemaking industry as an asset to be preserved. Commercial rents from 2014 to 2019 are analyzed using difference-in-differences models, with a supplementary analysis of business entry and establishment counts. The findings revealed a statistically significant positive effect on commercial rents across all business sectors, with the most pronounced effect for the leather and shoemaking industry, which sustained higher entry rates and recorded net growth in establishment counts in treatment areas. Its rents did not follow the prevailing visibility and land value gradients, which points to activity still organized around production. While the results imply that the balance falls toward retention, case studies from the same period leave open the possibility that retention could be the form that displacement takes. As urban expansion continues to reach post-industrial districts, Seongsu is instructive for what made retention possible. For planners who seek to preserve the industrial base, the case points to the need to align the occupants a plan aims to reach with those its instruments protect.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149130280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Urban StudiesPub Date : 2026-10-09DOI: 10.1177/00420980261489134
José María Tubío-Sánchez, Santiago Lago-Peñas, Patricio Sanchez-Fernandez
{"title":"Renters, mortgagors and landowners. Social composition and the political economy of urban land supply in Spain","authors":"José María Tubío-Sánchez, Santiago Lago-Peñas, Patricio Sanchez-Fernandez","doi":"10.1177/00420980261489134","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261489134","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines how land supply is affected by differing resident interests in urban development. The Spanish housing bubble (1999–2007) offers a relevant context for this study. With the massive influx of credit into the housing sector, it is likely that these conflicting interests intensified, influencing local planning decisions. Drawing on the homevoter and growth machine hypotheses, we explore how resident composition (from renters in urban areas to landowners in rural ones) affects land supply dynamics, with particular focus on mortgagors who predominantly moved into suburban areas during this period. As significant investors in housing, mortgagors are likely more concerned with land planning decisions that might affect their primary investment. Using data from the Spanish housing bubble period, we show that mortgaged housing is negatively associated with land supply expansion, while the percentage of landowners correlates positively with increased land availability. The electoral effects of these land supply decisions vary: a 10% increase in mortgaged housing decreases the incumbent party’s vote share by 0.76 percentage points, whereas a 10% increase in landowners results in a 0.12 percentage point increase in the vote share. Furthermore, municipalities with higher proportions of mortgaged housing and greater increases in property values tend to experience more negative electoral consequences from land supply expansion, whereas areas with a larger amount of landowners and lower increases in property value show the opposite trend.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149130285","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Urban StudiesPub Date : 2026-09-30DOI: 10.1177/00420980261460325
Jane M. Jacobs, Ofita Purwani
{"title":"Neo-royal urbanisms: Royal agency in contemporary city building in Southeast Asia","authors":"Jane M. Jacobs, Ofita Purwani","doi":"10.1177/00420980261460325","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261460325","url":null,"abstract":"Monarchies in Southeast Asia are neither residual nor archaic institutions. This editorial introduction to the special issue argues that royal entities in the region – across Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand – remain adaptive and active forces that shape contemporary urbanisation in significant ways. Drawing on a critical comparative framework, it introduces the concept of neo-royal urbanisms to describe how royal institutions routinely use urban development to realise and express power, while non-royal interests in turn leverage royal endorsement to secure development objectives. The article situates Southeast Asian monarchies within a broader global resurgence of personalistic, quasi-royal political authority, arguing that the region offers a distinctive and theoretically generative vantage point from which to examine these trends. The article also addresses the methodological challenges of researching élite royal power, including restricted access, explicit and implicit censorship and the opacity of networks that blur royal, commercial and military interests. It argues that the built environment itself constitutes a critical field of evidence for tracing royal agency. Together, the articles in this special issue demonstrate that the city is not merely a backdrop to neo-royalism but the primary medium through which symbolic, political and economic royal power is assembled and contested.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"31 1","pages":"2839-2853"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149123093","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Urban StudiesPub Date : 2026-09-29DOI: 10.1177/00420980261484438
Nicole Cook, Elyse Stanes, Chris Gibson, Gordon Waitt, Tim Wall, Sam Quirk, Elloise Ames, Anna Smith, Kaitlyn Rankin, Jessica Holland
{"title":"Planning for place-based circularity in mid-sized industrial cities: Accommodating industrial-scale and vernacular food waste trajectories","authors":"Nicole Cook, Elyse Stanes, Chris Gibson, Gordon Waitt, Tim Wall, Sam Quirk, Elloise Ames, Anna Smith, Kaitlyn Rankin, Jessica Holland","doi":"10.1177/00420980261484438","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261484438","url":null,"abstract":"There is growing recognition of the tension between industrial/top-down and vernacular/bottom-up circular economies, as well as the need for place-based approaches to sustainable transitions policy. Yet how to reconcile place-based policy with divergent forms of circularity remains unclear. Rather than viewing such tensions as requiring resolution, we examine the place-based conditions under which industrial-scale and vernacular food waste trajectories can productively coexist, and the conditions under which they cannot. Mid-sized industrial cities (MSICs) are a favourable setting for coexisting forms of place-based circularity, yet they are often overlooked in circular economy research, despite being tasked with managing the heavy, polluting, and industrial metabolic functions upon which larger metropolitan regions depend. Drawing upon longitudinal research over a 15-year period in an exemplary MSIC – Wollongong, NSW, Australia – this article develops a framework of intersecting circularities foregrounding the co-constitution of place-based circularity and city context. Applying this framework reveals the sociomaterial qualities of circularities, the spatial reconfigurations that enable them, and the co-presence of industrial, top-down and smaller-scale vernacular approaches. From multiple qualitative research projects, we outline three drivers of place-based circularity: diverse and flexible land-use planning and zoning; logistical infrastructures that support proximity of actors; and innovative and resourced consumer engagement with food waste’s visceralities. We argue that MSICs offer distinctive sociomaterialities for hybrid circularities, that are not captured by centralised governance and planning models, nor grassroots sufficiency. Realising the potential for place-based approaches in MSICs demands acknowledgement of the regulatory, material and cultural pre-conditions that make circularity possible.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"96 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149123100","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Urban StudiesPub Date : 2026-09-28DOI: 10.1177/00420980261487090
Roderick J. Lawrence
{"title":"Confronting housing and health inequities: Wanted—critical transdisciplinary inquiry","authors":"Roderick J. Lawrence","doi":"10.1177/00420980261487090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261487090","url":null,"abstract":"This critical commentary requests creative, critical, and inclusive dialogue about the persistence of inequitable housing and health inequalities. It complements numerous publications in housing and urban studies about environmental, ethnic, socio-economic, and residential inequalities in an era of growing neoliberal politics and policies that influence housing and health inequities. The main aim is to propose conceptual and methodological reforms in housing and urban studies. I posit that critical transdisciplinary inquiry enables innovative contributions to bridge the gap between persistent housing and health inequities and ineffective responses to them. Critical transdisciplinary inquiry includes ethical and moral values that acknowledge and confront housing and health inequities worldwide. The common actor/institutional framework used by academic researchers in housing and urban studies that devalues dominant power imbalances of private investors and property owners in housing markets is contested; the authority of local and national governing institutions to support alternative approaches is revalued. Given the ineffectiveness of private enterprises and public authorities in reducing housing and health inequities since the 1980s, community consortia should be supported to mainstream cooperative housing and expand their effective responses. Lessons from 19th-century housing and urban history, and coordinated responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, support this way forward.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149123158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Urban StudiesPub Date : 2026-09-28DOI: 10.1177/00420980261488773
Kevin Keenan
{"title":"The state as democratic growth coalition: Embeddedness within state planning","authors":"Kevin Keenan","doi":"10.1177/00420980261488773","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261488773","url":null,"abstract":"This paper answers the following questions: How does the state itself offer embeddedness for a growth coalition, and where exactly does the coalition locate and embed within the state? To answer this question, the author draws on insider experience leading the impact assessment of a state plan in the USA. Through this position, the author had unprecedented access to the highest levels of state government as the state updated its state plan, which had not been done in more than two decades. The investigator positions this access as qualitative data to form a case study, including observations of a variety of policymakers and other actors at the highest levels of state planning. By applying urban geography literature on growth coalitions within a Deleuzian framework of entwined capitalist expansion, I analyze the data to offer three advances. First, while growth coalitions have been theorized at the local level and at the regional level, they have not been theorized as completely embedded within the state itself. This paper reveals that government workers themselves can be the coalition—often clandestinely and without any of the actors commonly theorized present. Second, theory is needed to understand the interface of multiple growth coalitions operating at different scales as well as how government serves as the space where they sometimes meet, and third, that state growth coalitions have the power to dramatically influence local planning, despite what planners’ professional training may require and the existence of local coalitions.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149123094","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Urban StudiesPub Date : 2026-09-28DOI: 10.1177/00420980261486152
Xinyi Wang, Gaoyuan Wang, Zhuoxu Qi
{"title":"Neighbourhood linguistic accessibility for older people in Singapore: Spatial mismatch and linguistic gentrification","authors":"Xinyi Wang, Gaoyuan Wang, Zhuoxu Qi","doi":"10.1177/00420980261486152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261486152","url":null,"abstract":"Linguistic accessibility, the availability of services and information in languages familiar to residents, remains largely absent from environmental gerontology and age-friendly city assessment frameworks, despite its growing significance for older adults in multilingual cities undergoing rapid language policy transitions. This study develops a framework of neighbourhood linguistic accessibility for older people and applies it to 10 planning areas with high older-adult concentrations in Singapore. Using 3922 points of interest and 31,275 online reviews collected from Google Maps, it constructs dual supply-side (D1) and demand-side (D2) linguistic diversity indices, refined through sentiment analysis to better reflect the linguistic experiences of everyday service use, and analysed through spatial clustering to identify distributional patterns across the urban environment. The results reveal a systematic spatial mismatch: linguistic diversity hotspots concentrate in the Central Business District, while mature estates where more than 25% of residents are aged 65 and above display no comparable linguistic accessibility. Within Singapore’s planning structure, which designates town centres as mixed-use daily service hubs for older residents, linguistic accessibility varies markedly, with only a minority showing meaningful multilingual diversity. These mismatches suggest two mechanisms of linguistic gentrification: globalisation-driven concentration of multilingual environments, and community-renewal-driven displacement of historically inclusive spaces. Identifying four spatial configurations and four differentiated policy categories, the study challenges the assumption that signage diversity equates to accessibility and calls for embedding language–competence alignment within age-friendly assessment frameworks, offering a transferable approach to achieving linguistic equity in multilingual urban governance.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149123159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Urban StudiesPub Date : 2026-09-28DOI: 10.1177/00420980261486360
Krisztina Varró, Bárbara Oliveira Soares
{"title":"Cities\u0000 of care? Towards more ‘scalar-attuned’ perspectives in urban care research","authors":"Krisztina Varró, Bárbara Oliveira Soares","doi":"10.1177/00420980261486360","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261486360","url":null,"abstract":"The expanding scholarship on ‘caring’ or ‘care-full’ cities has usefully reconceptualised cities as spaces of care and, by exposing real-world local initiatives, compellingly argued in favour centring care in urban governance and planning. Arguably, however, the insufficiently nuanced understanding and use of the concept of scale has weakened the analytical grip of this body of work on how and which practices and relations of care emerge, with which impact and for whom. Relatedly, the subtle but persisting tendency to foreground the urban as the primary site of caring has undercut the possibility to problematise and repoliticise care as a multiscalar field of praxis and intervention. This intervention develops a sympathetic critique of research on urban care, calling for more ‘scalar-attuned’ perspectives that explicitly and reflexively engage with the concept of scale. To illustrate the relevance of our argument, we call for the (re)insertion of the national scale into scholarship on urban caring and highlight three intertwined modalities in which the national co-constitutes care in the city. We do so not to demand top-down state intervention to care, but to invite scholars working on urban caring to consider, discuss and contest the full spectrum of scales-as-relations that constitute the practices and politics of (un)caring.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"165 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149123160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}