Before/After the Urban Frontier

Hyun Bang Shin is Professor of Geography and Urban Studies in the Department of Geography and Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and also Director of LSE Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre. His research centres on the critical analysis of the political economy of urbanisation with particular attention to cities in Asia. His research themes include the circulation of Asian urbanism and capital, speculative urbanisation, politics of displacement; planetary gentrification; urban social movements; mega-events as urban spectacles. His most recent books include Neoliberal Urbanism, Contested Cities and Housing in Asia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), Planetary Gentrification (Polity Press, 2016), and Global Gentrifications: Uneven Development and Displacement (Policy Press, 2015). Other forthcoming books include The Political Economy of Mega Projects in Asia (Routledge) and Making China Urban (Routledge).   

AbdouMaliq Simone is an urbanist with an abiding interest in the spatial and social compositions of urban regions. He is a Senior Professorial Fellow at the Urban Institute at The University of Sheffield, a research associate at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, visiting professor of sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, visiting professor at the African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town, research associate with the Rujak Center for Urban Studies in Jakarta, and research fellow at the University of Tarumanagara. He has a long background working in urban areas of Africa, South and Southeast Asia, with a particular interest in the everyday lives of Muslim working class residents.

Vanessa Watson is Professor of City Planning in the School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics and founder member of the African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town, South Africa. She holds a PhD from the University of Witwatersrand, and is a Fellow of the University of Cape Town. Her research and publications have been on southern perspectives on planning theory, African cities and urbanisation, urban food security, and currently on planning and corruption in Africa, also new economic forces re-shaping African cities, in particular private-sector driven property development initiatives. Watson is Global South Editor of Urban Studies and an editor of Planning Theory. Two recent books are: De Satge R and V Watson (2018): Urban Planning in the Global South: Conflicting rationalities in contested urban space, Palgrave; and G Bhan, S Srinivas and V Watson Eds (2018): Routledge Companion to Planning in the Global South, Routledge.