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Prof Colin Marx
Professor of Urban Development Planning
Development Planning Unit
Faculty of the Built Environment
- Joined UCL
- 11th Jan 2011
Research summary
My current research interests relate to attempts to produce accounts of urban development processes from the perspective of poor and marginalised groups of women and men in sub-Saharan African cities. To this end, I am focusing on the role of informal land markets in broader urban land markets and development; the relationship between formal and informal land use management practices; the role of property rights in relation to city development; rethinking the urban economies of poor people; validating the economic knowledge of poor women and men working informally in cities, questioning the relationship between poverty and urban economic development; and the mobilisation of power through transnational activist networks.
You can see an example of some of my work here: https://mediacentral.ucl.ac.uk/Player/58495823
Teaching
I teach in the following modules:
- DPU Research Methods Seminar Series
- DEVP0028 The City and Its Relations
Teaching summary
I teach in the following modules:
- DPU Research Methods Seminar Series
- DEVP0028 The City and Its Relations
Education
- Open University
- Doctorate, Doctor of Philosophy | 2006
Biography
Dr Colin Marx is Professor of Urban Development Planning and the PhD Programme Director.A town planner, adult educator and geographer by training, I have extensive experience in community-driven struggles against inequalities in African cities. A consistent focus of my work has been how to identify and act in relation to power relations that produce or sustain urban inequities. I explore how power is mobilised, sustained and used to generate urban environments through the conditions of impoverishment and informality that characterise many cities in the Global South.
In the DPU, I direct the PhD programme. I lead a module on The City and its relations with a focus on urban land issues as part of the MSc Urban Development Planning and a Research Methods Seminar Series for MPhil students. I have taught at Kingston University London and lectured at universities in South Africa.
Before joining UCL, I directed a large urban advocacy NGO in South Africa in the post-apartheid period. The organisation was involved in innovative and supportive interventions in the urban environment such as community mobilising, architecture and infrastructural planning, project management, community based loan schemes and research.