Engaged Urbanism ─ Cities & Methodologies

How can we understand the variety and dynamism of contemporary cities and urban experience across the globe? Engaged Urbanism showcases the exciting ways in which urbanists are responding to this question and working towards fairer cities. Its authors offer succinct, candid and carefully illustrated commentaries on the trials and successes of risk-taking research, revealing how they collaborate across fields of expertise, inventing or adapting methods to suit bespoke situations. Featuring novel uses and combinations of practice-from activism, architectural design and undercover journalism, to film, sculpture, performance and photography- in a diversity of cities such as Beirut, Johannesburg, Kisumu, London and Rio de Janeiro, Engaged Urbanism demonstrates how some of the greatest challenges for present and future populations are being rigorously and creatively addressed.

Ben Campkin is Senior Lecturer in Architectural History and Theory at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and Director of UCL’s Urban Laboratory. He is the author of Remaking London: Decline and Regeneration in Urban Culture (2015), which received the 2015 Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Foundation Book Award.Ger Duijzings is Professor in Social Anthropology at the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies, Universitat Regensburg and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Mu‥nchen, Germany. He was until 2014 Co-Director of the UCL Urban Laboratory. His most recent book is Global Villages: Rural and Urban Transformations in Contemporary Bulgaria (2013).