I came to my PhD topic, the ethics of architecture, through a slightly winding route. My academic background is in political science and political theory, with a particular interest in democratic theory and applied ethics. Within that broad field, however, I found myself drawn to a fairly narrow question: how do democratic societies relate, normati...

Collaborative housing (CH) is a commonly used umbrella term for all housing projects with at least some degree of collaboration between residents. Collaboration may refer to common ownership, building and design, activities, shared spaces, and more. Every project is unique. Some have individual apartments but lots of common space on-site, such as c...

Authors: Helen Nuo XU and Gehry Guo CUI Rethinking urban village regeneration: from a 'project' to a 'process' Speed is often the most striking impression many have of China's incredibly rapid urban development over the past four decades. An example is the 200,000 m2 Wanda Shopping Plaza, which can be completed from architectural design t...

Authors: Helen Nuo XU and Gehry Guo CUI  Urban villages emerged as a direct result of rapid urbanization when farmlands were purchased for green new development, leaving villages surrounded by modern high-rises. They are usually densely built and populated, accommodating migrants with low rent price and proximity to jobs and urban activit...

Authoritarian populist regimes have no use for technocrats who purport to serve the public good in the name of rationality. Where does that leave planners? Planners, like all technocrats, draw their authority from their specialized knowledge. Whether in government or the private sector, planners' know-how, experience and expertise is what gives the...

Guest author: Anke Brons (Aeres University of Applied Sciences, Almere and Wageningen University) Note: This post was initially published on the blog of the The...

From the AESOP YA we want to share this article by African Centre for Cities (ACC) Director Edgar Pieterse, and his reflection on Prof. Watson contribution to p...

8 min. read Natural disasters are often identified in the parlance as 'acts of God', and their human victims, as the costs of encountering a juggernaut. Another...

3 min read. We are pleased to inform that there is still time until the 31st of December to take part in the Special Issue of PlaNext: Cities in the face of cri...

3 min. read + video. Continuing with the presentation of the new members of AESOP YA Coordination Team, today we engage with the thoughts and personal introduct...

7 min. read. We continue with our series on themes from the global South, with a short article by our editor-in-chief, Luis Lozano-Paredes. This series on the g...

14 min. read A summary examining the potential of so-called “placemaking” interventions in terms of strengthening urban justice, using the placemaking strategy ...

2 min read. As we passed the torch to our new YA blog team, one of the decisions we took was to change the aesthetics of the blog to make it more reachable for ...

4 min. read + videos Building upon our previous editorial on the Conversations in Planning booklet series focused on a perspective of the global south in associ...

8 min read Guest authors: Urban Transitions Hub (UTH) (Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon) Editor's note: This post is an engaging contribution ...

4 minute read Guest author: Caitlin Hafferty (Countryside and Community Research Institute, University of Gloucestershire, UK) Note: this post was initially pub...

Reading time: 3 minutes Goodbye 2020, welcome 2021 Without doubt, 2020 was a challenging year for all of us. Equally, the challenges came with a silver lining. ...

The recent UN climate conference COP25 took place in Madrid last December. The conference fell short of consensus in many areas, although many technical issues ...

Read time: 3-4 minutes This post summarises the rich and diverse content shared on the YA blog during 2019. But first... Happy 2020 to all readers and followers...

Read time: 3-4 minutes As we enter a brand new decade, the American spatial planning community has been generous in providing retrospectives of the past decade....