Highlights from 2015

2015 has been the second year of the blog of the YA, a year of consolidation and some changes in the team of regular contributors. We published 24 posts and had more than 5,000 visits from basically every corner of the world.

So it is time for some highlights of what we have been talking about, starting with our regular contributors.

• Adam Radzimski, who joined the team in 2015, has written extensively on housing and Central and Eastern Cities. His post on the dilemma of renting versus buying has been among the most clicked of the year.
• Lorenzo Chelleri joined the blog in 2015 too, bringing about a focus on resilience and green policies. His post on green-washing and carbon-washing came very timely a few days after the controversial agreement of COP21 in Paris.
• Tiziana Susca was the third new entry in 2015. She has been focussing on climate adaptation and sustainability issues and, with her latest post, has provided an excursus on environmental philosophies and debates about anthropocentrism.
• During 2015, Fabian Wenner and Irina Paraschivoiu have delivered their latest post (for the time being, at least!) as regular contributors, debating respectively rent affordability and control in Germany, and the challenges to measuring urban quality of life.
  
  • I have contributed with some resources and debates on dissemination amd outreach. In occasion of the publication of the Open Access week, I have put together a list (in updating), of OA journals.

During 2015, we also published four posts from occasional contributors:

• Andrew Hoolachan, who had already contributed to the blog in 2014, wrote about the dilemmas for architectural conservation in one of the pro-independence cities in Scotland, Dundee.
• Dezsö Vajtho, in his post Critical Thinking about Smartness, service providing and technology reported on the two sessions organized by the Young Academics during the Urban Thinker Campus "The City as a Service" in Palermo (event website).
• Erik Omena de Melo reflected on the recent riots in Baltimore, suggesting that the new cycle(s) of urban discontents may be the signs of the end of "the end of the history".
• Pooja Shetty wrote the most read post of the year, offering a critique of recent trends of metropolitan governance in Mumbai Metropolitan Region.

We are looking forward for a rich 2016 with fresh ideas and contributions!