Three research notes linked to Governing Infrastructure Interfaces, a research project focusing on transport and sanitation infrastructure in Ethiopia’s two largest cities (Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa), have been published. The project is investigating the relationship between development goals and the contribution made by new infrastructure. The papers focus on how anthropology (Marco Di Nunzio), transport studies (Philipp Rode) and political science and public administration (Nuno F. da Cruz) view urban infrastructure.

Tim White, a Researcher at LSE Cities, has been awarded an ESRC Scholarship to pursue his PhD project on the Cities Programme at the LSE. The project will examine a pivotal response to the intensifying housing crises facing major global cities: the proliferation of corporatised ‘co-living’ spaces. Rather than supply individualised housing units, co-living companies offer ‘high-quality’ communal spaces, flexible rental contracts, and extensive, all-inclusive services as a trade-off for small, private units. Championing ‘sharing economy’ philosophy, the schemes aim to attract young creative professionals. White’s project will trace the emergence of this rapidly expanding form of co-housing and seek to understand its socioeconomic implications for urban areas. This will involve in-depth research in various case-study cities across Western Europe and North America. White has been exploring how residents experience life in different forms of high-density housing in London as part of the Experiencing Density research project at LSE Cities.

Aidan Mosselson, a Visiting Fellow at LSE Cities during 2017-2018, has published Vernacular Regeneration. The book, building upon Mosselson’s PhD research and work undertaken while at LSE Cities, provides a multi-layered account of the urban regeneration process currently taking place in inner-city Johannesburg.

Ricky Burdett, Director of LSE Cities and Urban Age, delivered the Charles Correa Memorial Lecture at the Designing Equitable Cities conference in Goa, India on 6 September 2018. Burdett drew insights from soon-to-be-released Shaping Cities in an Urban Age and shared how London’ s 2012 Olympics was used to solicit bids strategically targeting social integration, economic development and environmental regeneration. According to Burdett, design is only one of the challenges: “You can’t make equitable cities if mayors don’t agree and jurisdiction, issues of land and power do not line up.”